STOCKHOLM, December 23. /TASS/. Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede strongly rejected the idea of putting the island for sale after President-elect Donald Trump suggested the US should take control over the territory.

"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale," he said, the Ritzau news agency reported. "But we must continue to be open to cooperation and trade with the whole world, especially with our neighbors."

Trump earlier said Washington should take over the island nation as he said he would tap Ken Howery for US ambassador to Denmark.

"For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity," the president-elect said on his Truth Social media platform.

In 2019, during Trump’s first term, US news media wrote that he looked into the possibility of buying Greenland, a Danish territory with a broad autonomy. Denmark declined to discuss selling the island, dismissing the idea as absurd.