PARIS: The European Union will not let other nations attack its sovereign borders, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in response to US President-elect Donald Trump’s comments on Greenland regarding the “ownership and control” of the vast Arctic island that has been part of Denmark for over 600 years.
“There is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its soverign borders, whoever they are ... We are a strong continent,” Barrot said.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, as he declared US control of both to be vital to American national security.
Speaking to reporters less than two weeks before he takes office on Jan. 20 and as a delegation of aides and advisers that includes Donald Trump Jr. is in Greenland, Trump left open the use of the American military to secure both territories. Trump’s intention marks a rejection of decades of US policy that has prioritized self-determination over territorial expansion.

Greenland, home to a large US military base, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally and a founding member of NATO. Trump cast doubts on the legitimacy of Denmark’s claim to Greenland.
The Panama Canal has been solely controlled by the eponymous country for more than 25 years. The US returned the Panama Canal Zone to the country in 1979 and ended its joint partnership in controlling the strategic waterway in 1999.

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is negotiating with Afghanistan to exchange Americans detained in the country for at least one high-profile prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay with alleged ties to former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Representatives of the White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Representatives for the Afghan Taliban also did not immediately respond.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is seeking the return of three Americans seized in 2022 — Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi — in exchange for Muhammad Rahim Al-Afghani, the WSJ reported.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that the Biden administration has been negotiating with the Taliban since at least July on a US proposal to exchange Corbett, Glezmann and Habibi for Rahim.
The Taliban, who deny holding Habibi, countered with an offer to exchange Glezmann and Corbett for Rahim and two others, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Corbett and Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022 a year after the Taliban seized Kabul amid the chaotic US troop withdrawal. Glezmann was detained later in 2022 while visiting as a tourist.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said they could not confirm the WSJ story, but added that the administration was “working around the clock” to secure the release of the three Americans.
Rahim’s lawyer, James Connell, told Reuters that neither the Biden administration nor the Taliban had informed him or Rahim of the negotiations.
“It does seem important to include Rahim or his representative in the conversation,” said Connell. “As it happens, he is willing to be traded or exchanged.”
Rahim was “the last person brought into the CIA torture program,” said Connell, referring to an agency program instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks that used harsh interrogation methods on suspected Islamist militants.
The CIA denies the methods amounted to torture.
A Senate intelligence committee report on the agency’s so-called enhanced interrogation program called Rahim an “Al Qaeda facilitator” and said that he was arrested in Pakistan in June 2007 and “rendered” to the CIA the following month.
He was kept in a secret CIA “black site,” where he was subjected to tough interrogation methods, including extensive sleep deprivation, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in March 2008, the report said.
The US-Taliban talks have been in motion since July, according to the WSJ, which cited sources who attended a classified House Foreign Affairs Committee briefing last month with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
On Monday, Biden’s administration sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman, reducing the prisoner population at the detention center in Cuba by nearly half as part of its effort to close the facility as the president prepares to leave office Jan. 20.