The US has been holding regular negotiations with Denmark to expand its military presence in Greenland, according to multiple officials familiar with the discussions, with talks between both sides progressing in recent months.

US officials are seeking to open three new bases in the south of the territory, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark, as they work to resolve a diplomatic crisis sparked by President Donald Trump when he threatened to seize Greenland by force.

Trump said in January that the US should “own” Greenland to prevent Russia or China from taking it. He said this could happen the “easy way ” or “the hard way”.

The White House confirmed the administration was engaged in high-level talks with Greenland and Denmark, but declined to comment on details of the negotiations. A White House official told the BBC the administration was very optimistic the talks were headed in the right direction.

Denmark has previously expressed a willingness to discuss additional American military bases in Greenland, and its foreign ministry confirmed talks with the US were taking place. “There is an ongoing diplomatic track with the United States. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not go into further detail at this time,” a spokesperson said.

US officials have floated an arrangement in which the three new military bases would be formally designated as US sovereign territory, according to one source with knowledge of the negotiations.

The bases would be in southern Greenland and primarily focus on surveillance of potential Russian and Chinese maritime activity in an area of the northern Atlantic between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom known as the GIUK Gap, the officials who spoke to the BBC said.

The two sides have not formally agreed to anything yet and the final number of bases could change, the sources said. One of the new bases would likely be located in Narsarsuaq, on the site of a former US military base that housed a small airport.

Any other new military bases would likely also be located on sites in Greenland that have existing infrastructure such as airfields or ports, which could be upgraded at a lower cost than building new facilities, analysts said.

US officials have not raised the possibility during talks of somehow seizing control of Greenland, something that Denmark and Nato have publicly rejected.

Despite Trump’s threats, the countries have been actively working towards a deal in recent months.

The talks have been confined to a small working group of officials in Washington who have made headway negotiating outside of the spotlight while the administration has been consumed by the war in Iran.

General Gregory Guillot, the head of US Northern Command, gave a broad sense of the negotiations during congressional testimony in March. He said the US was seeking to open new bases, but the sources close to the talks described new details that paint a picture of regular high-level meetings that have progressed in recent months.

The delicate diplomatic effort is being led by Michael Needham, a senior state department official who has been tasked with crafting a deal that satisfies Trump while also respecting Denmark’s redlines around protecting its borders.

“Needham is running point” on Greenland, said a senior diplomat with knowledge of the talks. Behind the scenes, the person said, the administration is “approaching it very professionally”.

The teams have met at least five times since mid-January. Needham is usually accompanied by one or two US officials from the state department or National Security Council, several sources said. His counterparts in the room include Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s ambassador to the US, and Jacob Isbosethsen, the top Greenlandic diplomat in Washington.

Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, Republican Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, hasn’t taken part in the negotiations and is largely absent from the diplomatic process, three sources said.

“He was supposed to be more of like a rah-rah cheerleader of the idea that we could just flex our muscles and take over Greenland as a security asset,” said a close Landry ally who asked not to be named. Landry “has never been to any of the actual talks.”

Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The US currently has one military base in Greenland, down from approximately 17 military facilities during the height of the Cold War. Pituffik Space Base is located in northwestern Greenland – it monitors missiles for NORAD but is not configured to conduct maritime surveillance.

Some current and former officials, as well as Arctic security experts, told the BBC that Washington could have advanced its interests in Greenland without threatening a Nato ally in such strong terms.

“Why threaten an ally with a military operation or invasion when what you want is something that could be negotiated quite easily?” said one former senior US defence official.

Others, however, praised the co-operation between the US and Denmark.

“Wherever the US and our allies leave a vacuum, that vacuum is often filled by China and Russia,” retired General Glen VanHerck, the head of Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) from 2020 to 2024, told the BBC.

Behind closed doors, negotiators have sought to reach a compromise under the framework of an existing decades-old security agreement between the US and Denmark.

The 1951 pact grants the US a wide berth to expand its military operations in Greenland. The Danish government must approve any US military expansions in the territory, but Denmark has historically supported America’s military operations there and has never rejected a US request to expand its presence, Arctic security experts said.

Representatives of the Greenland government in Washington declined to comment. The US state department also declined to comment.

Trump expressed interest in the US gaining greater access to Greenland during his first term as president. But his renewed interest earlier this year set off a diplomatic crisis that highlighted tensions between Nato and the Trump administration.

[BBC]

US President Donald Trump has said the month-long ceasefire between the US and Iran is on “massive life support”.

He told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that while the ceasefire remained in place, it was “unbelievably weak”.

Following Trump’s comments, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf wrote on X that Iran’s armed forces were, “ready to respond and to teach a lesson for any aggression.”

Iran laid out its demands to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in a counter-offer sent to the US on Sunday. Trump rejected the proposal, calling it “totally unacceptable” and a “piece of garbage”.

After Trump’s comments, Esmail Baghaei, a foreign ministry spokesperson for Iran, said Tehran’s proposals were “responsible” and “generous”.

After his comments saying Iran’s armed forces ready to respond, Ghalibaf said in a separate post on X that there was “no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal”.

“The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” he said.

Tehran’s offer includes an immediate end to the war on all fronts – a reference to the continued Israeli attacks against Iran-supported Hezbollah in Lebanon – a halt to the US naval blockade of Iranian ports and guarantees of no further attacks on Iran, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

[BBC]

Bangladesh edged ahead of  Pakistan on a day cut in half by rain and bad light, with Monimul Haque and Najmul Hossain Shanto stretching their lead to 179, with seven wickets still in hand.

With the afternoon session wiped out entirely by torrential rains, Bangladesh were solid either side of it, thanks primarily to 105-run stand between the pair, their century partnership this Test, and just the third time a pair has done so for Bangladesh.

Pakistan’s seam bowlers threatened early after removing the openers cheaply once more, but found themselves held up by the two left-handers, with a late strike from Shaheen Shah Afridi in the final session the only triumph they had to show for the rest of the day.

The lights were on almost from the outset on an overcast morning, and the first dismissal looked like the kind a seam bowler would get on a green top under the clouds.

Abbas got one to nip back in off the surface into Mahmudul Hasan Joy’s pads, right under the knee roll. With Pakistan constricting the run-scoring, they struck again through Hasan Ali, who took advantage of the variable bounce to rear one up that caught the shoulder of Shadman Islam’s bat.

The job of rebuilding fell once more to the pair primarily responsible for putting Bangladesh in this position of relative control. Mominul and Shanto merely picked up where they’d left off, settling in and taking the sting out of Pakistan’s attack. Mominul was the more cautious one while Shanto gradually picked up the scoring rate, every run appearing to tilt the match situation ever so slightly Bangladesh’s way.

In the final half hour of the session, the pair looked positively dominant and, in a repeat of the first innings, the runs in that period flowed easily. Salman Ali Agha’s spin posed a threat early on, with Mohammad Rizwan dropping a sharp chance off an outside edge, but even that threat faded soon after. In his final over before lunch, Mominul leapt down the wicket and whacked him over his head.

That the heavens opened might have been an advantage for Pakistan, in that it broke up the pair’s rhythm and made Bangladesh’s calculations about the pacing of their innings more complicated. However, nearly four hours since then previous ball, the resumption of play saw no semblance of a loss of control from either batter. Both ambled to their half-centuries unencumbered, with only Abbas’s unerring accuracy and incessant ability to squeeze movement from a placid surface occasionally discomforting them.

Shan Masood had held off turning to Noman Ali until 35 overs had gone by, presumably largely because he did not wish to bowl a fingerspinner to two left-armers.

But as soon as he was handed the ball, he demonstrated why that theory did not deserve the weight Pakistan appeared to put in it. In his first over, he got one to rear up to Mominul, who could only splice the ball to short leg, where Abdullah Fazal put down a sharp chance. He was not taken out of the attack for the remainder of the day, often exploiting the rough around the left hander’s off stump, and nearly snaring Mushfiqur Rahim when he mistimed a slog agonisingly over long-on’s head.

Bangladesh’s serene progress was only interrupted when Afridi found seam movement to bring one into Mominul, who could not get his outside edge out of the way. With some time remaining in the final session, Pakistan may have hoped to trigger a collapse, but between then and until bad light forced the end of play, Shanto and Mushfiqur ensured there was no such thing.

Brief scores:
Bangladesh 413 and 152 for 3 in 50.3 overs (Najimul Hossain Shanto 58*, Mominul Haque 56;  Hasan Ali 1-23) lead Pakistan 386 in 100.3 overs (Azan Awais 103, Imam-ul-Haq 45, Abdullah Fazal 60, Salman Agha 58, Mohammad Rizwan 59; Mehidy Hasan Miraz 5-102, Taijul Islam 2-46, Taskin Ahmed 2-70) by 179 runs

[Cricinfo]