The prime minister of the Greenland says the people of his mineral-rich Arctic territory don't want to be Americans but that he's open to greater cooperation with the United States.

Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede said on Friday he was ready to speak with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he wants control over the Arctic island, and urged respect for the island's independence aspirations.

Faced with what many in Denmark are calling Trump's "provocation," Frederiksen has broadly attempted to strike a conciliatory tone, repeatedly referring to the US as "Denmark's closest partner". It was "only natural" that the US was preoccupied by the Arctic and Greenland, she added.

The island’s rare earth minerals and plum Arctic position have turned it into a geopolitical hotspot and the object of American fantasies.