Nuuk (AFP) - Denmark’s King Frederik X arrived in Greenland on Wednesday for a three-day visit in a show of support for the autonomous Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.

The 57-year-old monarch waved to well-wishers brandishing Greenlandic flags at Nuuk airport as he was greeted by the territory’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

“It is a great pleasure for me to be back in Greenland and to meet the Greenlandic people,” the king told reporters after a meeting with Nielsen.

He added that Greenland’s people and their wellbeing were “very close to my heart.”

“They always have been. They always will be,” he said.

Trump’s threats to seize the vast mineral-rich Arctic island, by force if necessary, have ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Denmark.

Frederik spent Wednesday in Greenland’s capital Nuuk to start the highly symbolic visit.

After talks with Nielsen, the king toured a high school and a fisheries company before taking part in a social coffee break with locals at a cultural centre.

On Thursday he was to head to Maniitsoq, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of Nuuk, before visiting a Danish military Arctic training centre in Kangerlussuaq, farther north, on Friday.

Despite Denmark’s past as colonial power over the autonomous territory, the monarchy, including Frederik, has long enjoyed huge popularity in Greenland.

Among the dozen or so well-wishers braving the cold outside the airport to greet the king was a 44-year-old man who told AFP that “it’s good he’s coming here.”

“It’s an important sign that the king is coming,” agreed a 74-year-old woman who identified herself only as Kalistiana.

She said Trump’s repeated insistence that the US needed Greenland for security reasons had been “very stressful”.

“It has been very frightening for all of us, we have never, ever experienced anything like this in our world in Greenland,” she added.

- ‘Sense of unity’ -

The king, who became monarch in 2024 after the abdication of his mother Queen Margrethe, last visited the island in April 2025.

He also visited in July 2024, with royal commentators noting that three visits in less than two years was unusual.

An avid sportsman who enjoys the outdoors, Frederik took part in a gruelling four-month, 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) ski expedition across Greenland in 2000 as part of the Danish Navy’s elite Sirius dogsled patrol.

“There should be no doubt about my love for Greenland,” Frederik said in March 2025.

Greenland’s prime minister told reporters the “most important thing is that the Greenlandic citizens and our population can feel the sense of unity between the Royal House and the Greenlandic people, which every year proves to be very, very strong.”

He said Frederik had demonstrated his commitment to Greenland, noting that “within a short time he has actually been here a couple of times”.

While an overwhelming majority of the island’s inhabitants support a decades-long drive for eventual full independence, Trump’s threats over the past year have led to a warming of ties between Denmark and Greenland.

Nielsen and his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen have repeatedly insisted that only Greenland can determine its future.

Greenlanders don’t want to be Danish or American, Nielsen has said.

But if they had to choose between remaining part of Denmark or joining the US, “we choose the Kingdom of Denmark, we choose the EU, we choose NATO.”

The Danish prime minister said Saturday she believed Trump still wants to own Greenland despite dialling back his threats to seize it by force.

Trump insists mineral-rich Greenland is vital for US and NATO security against Russia and China, as a melting Arctic opens up and the superpowers jostle for strategic advantage.

A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but details have not been made public.