His demands have been rejected by Greenland’s leaders and by Nato member Denmark, of which the island is a semi-autonomous territory.
Cooper was joined by her Norwegian counterpart, Espen Barth Eide, who said the row between Europe and the US over Greenland was a “distraction” from the greater security threat in Ukraine.
The Foreign Secretary said: “The Arctic is the gateway for Russia’s Northern Fleet to be able to threaten the United Kingdom, to threaten Western Europe and Norway, to threaten the United States and Canada.
“So it’s a whole transatlantic security depends on our Arctic security,” she added.
Cooper explained that Nato needs to “double down” and “do what we’ve done in other areas”, to make sure that “we really strengthen the security of the high north”.
Asked what that meant in practical terms, she explained she wanted “co-ordinated excercises, operations and intellgience sharing” in the region – similar to the Baltic Sentry and the Eastern Sentry – coining it Arctic Sentry.
