OSLO: Denmark`s prime minister voiced outrage on Friday over media reports that Washington would step up spying in the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland, which is coveted by US President Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that US intelligence agencies had been ordered to find out more about its independence movement and opinions on American exploitation of resources.

According to the newspaper, intelligence agencies had been asked to identify people in Greenland and Denmark who support US objectives.

`Of course, you cannot spy against an ally,` Danish Prime Mette Frederiksen told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) coalition in Oslo. Frederiksen noted that Denmark`s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had already been in contact with the US and that the reports were `rumours`.

On Thursday, the charge d`af faires at the US embassy in Denmark Jennifer Hall Godfrey was summoned to a meeting at the Danish foreign ministry.

`We cannot tolerate people spying on each other.

This message was sent very clearly today,` Lokke told Danish broadcaster DR on Thursday.

`Spying in Nuuk by the United States is completely unacceptable. It is disrespectful,` Greenland`s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said.

Tensions between the United States and Denmark have soared after Trump repeatedly said he wanted to take control of the resource-rich Arctic island.-AFP