'Unprecedented': Iceland prime minister 'snubs' US vice president Mike Pence's visit

Prime Minister of Iceland Katrin Jakobsdottir has announced that she will skip US vice president's visit. Photo / AP

Iceland's leader has announced that she will skip US Vice President Mike Pence's visit to her Nordic nation, opting instead to keep "prior commitments" by attending a trade union conference in Sweden.

Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir said that she's planned for months to give the keynote speech for the Council of Nordic Trade Unions' annual meeting in Malmo, Sweden, on September 3 — the day before Pence's arrival. She has no plans to return the following day for his visit.

Vice President Mike Pence will visit in September. Photo / AP

"This visit, that was organised by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, has been bouncing a lot around the calendar so that it has been very difficult to organise oneself around it," she told Icelandic broadcaster RUV on Tuesday. Her office Wednesday confirmed that she had not changed her mind.

She also underscored that the arrangement was "absolutely not" about snubbing the Trump administration and that she had earlier this year met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The decision was made before President Donald Trump announced that he would cancel a visit to another Nordic nation, Denmark.

Pence is expected to discuss Iceland's strategic importance in the Arctic and NATO's efforts to counter Russia in the region. In July, the United States announced it would invest $57 million on military infrastructure near Iceland's capital Reykjavik.

"This is unprecedented for an Icelandic prime minister," historian Thor Whitehead told The Associated Press. "I doubt any other Western leader would decide to address a friendly conference abroad instead of welcoming a major foreign ally."

The office of prime minister holds the highest authority in Iceland, where the presidency is a symbolic position without much formal power.

Since taking office, Jakobsdottir has spearheaded progressive policies on abortion rights, LGBT rights and climate change. Activists including members of her own Left Green Party have protested Pence's visit, calling it "disrespectful" to minorities.

Pence's visit is organised by Iceland's foreign ministry, led by Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson from Iceland's conservative Independence Party. The party is Iceland's largest and entered into a rare coalition with Jakobsdottir's party after failing to secure a majority in elections in 2017.

Pence will be the first US vice president to visit Iceland, a country of just 350,000 people, since George HW Bush visited Reykjavik in 1983.

- AP