US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Danish officials next week to discuss the fate of Greenland - a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark that President Donald Trump says he needs for national security.
The vast island finds itself in the eye of a geopolitical storm with Trump's name on it and people here are clearly unnerved.
Yet when you fly in, it looks so peaceful. Ice and snow-capped mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, interrupted here and there by glittering fjords - all between the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans.
Greenland is nine times the size of the UK but it only has 57,000 inhabitants, most of them indigenous Inuit.
In the capital, Nuuk, daily life seems undisturbed. Parents drag their kids home from school on sledges and students roam around in illuminated malls, but beneath this tranquility lies an undercurrent of fear regarding Trump's ambitions for the island.
Many locals have expressed their fears about an American takeover. A pensioner passionately emphasized that the US must never plant its flag in their capital, while others voiced their trepidation related to Trump's military interventions abroad.
These sentiments echo a broader desire among Greenlanders for self-determination. While 85% oppose a US takeover, there's also a strong sentiment for independence from Danish rule, despite recognizing the economic support that Denmark provides.
Pipaluk Lynge-Rasmussen, a Greenlandic MP, stated, It's very important for us to speak out about what we want as a people. Her sentiments are shared widely among those calling for the island's interests to be prioritized in international discussions.
As discussions loom, both Greenland's parliament and its people prepare to push back against external pressures and assert their right to self-governance.
