Denmark Cancels NATO Conference After US Bans Trump Critic From Event - Atlantic Council

Umer Jamshaid Published December 09, 2019 | 01:13 PM

Denmark canceled a NATO event in the capital city of Copenhagen after the US embassy blocked a known critic of President Donald Trump from attending, the Danish Atlantic Council said

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th December, 2019) Denmark canceled a NATO event in the capital city of Copenhagen after the US embassy blocked a known critic of President Donald Trump from attending, the Danish Atlantic Council said.

US foreign policy expert Stanley Sloan was slated to speak at the conference marking the 70th anniversary NATO in Copenhagen, but US Ambassador Carla Sands objected to his participation. The Council "had no other option" but to comply as the embassy co-organized and sponsored the event.

"After serious consideration, we decided not to proceed with the Conference. The progress of the process has become too problematic," Dr. Lars Bangert Struwe, the secretary general of the Danish Atlantic Council, said in a statement published Sunday.

Struwe explained that Sloan's views regarding Trump were "no secret," especially following his social media profiles, but the organizers had no doubt Sloan would deliver "an unpolitical and objective lecture.

The US embassy, for its part, said that Sloan's participation was proposed last minute and did not follow the same deliberative of joint decision-making followed when recruiting other speakers, as per a Twitter post from the embassy's official account.

Sloan in turn responded to that tweet expressing regret for the embassy's objection to his lecture before publishing the talk he had drafted for the conference.

Ambassador Carla Sands, a former actress, donated $250,000 to the Trump campaign before being appointed to represent the US in the Scandinavian country, according to media reports.

The incident is the latest divergence between the Trump-led United States and NATO members, after a contentious summit in London last week saw Trump at odds with several NATO leaders.