DENMARK’S government has summoned the top US diplomat in the country to the Foreign Ministry for an explanation following reports that Washington has stepped up its spying operations in Greenland.

Acting US embassy head Jennifer Hall Godfrey met high-ranking Danish diplomat Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen on Thursday over a Wall Street Journal article published two days before, the ministry said in an email.

The newspaper, citing two people familiar with the US effort that it did not identify, reported that several high-ranking officials under US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had directed intelligence agency heads to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and sentiment regarding US resource extraction there.