NUUK, Greenland — German troops quietly packed up and left Greenland on Sunday — just two days after arriving for a highly publicized NATO military exercise requested by Denmark in response to President Trump’s threats to take control of the world’s largest island.

Germany is planning to set up a joint Nato operation in the Arctic in an effort to dissuade Donald Trump from annexing Greenland.

A stalemate between Denmark and the US over Greenland is prompting Europeans to establish a military presence on the Arctic island after a high-level meeting failed to defuse US threats over its future.

Jan 11 (Reuters) - A group of European countries, led by Britain and Germany, is discussing plans to boost their military presence in Greenland to show U.S. President Donald Trump that the continent is serious about Arctic security,

The French troops will join those from Germany, Norway and other countries.

Germany will propose setting up a joint NATO mission to monitor and protect security interests in the Arctic region in a bid to ease tensions with the US over its threats to annex Greenland, according to two people familiar with the government’s thinking.

NATO has begun transferring around 10,000 soldiers, equipment and vehicles to Germany for a major military exercise in the coming weeks under the shadow of the dispute over the status of Greenland. Dozens of vehicles belonging to an Italian military unit rolled off a cargo ship at the north-western German port of Emden early on Thursday.

STUTTGART, Germany — The top U.S. envoy to NATO said this week that he is eager for a German general to eventually take command of all allied forces, a job that has been held by an American officer since the bloc’s founding nearly 80 years ago.

At a Sunday meeting with the Washington Examiner editorial board, I asked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about Germany’s spending target of 1.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2024. Stoltenberg responded, “It’s a significant step in the right ...

The US president said allied troops had "stayed a little back" during the war in Afghanistan.