- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 November 2008 11.45 GMT
Greenland voters have overwhelmingly approved a plan to seek greater autonomy from Denmark and to try to tap oil reserves that may lie off the island's coast.
The province's election commission said 76% of voters backed proposals in a referendum to set new rules on splitting future oil revenue with Denmark. The vote was seen as a key step towards independence for the semi-autonomous territory, which relies on Danish subsidies.
The referendum, which was supported by Denmark, calls for the small, mostly Inuit population to take control of the local police force, courts and coastguard and to make Greenlandic the official language.
Voters turned up at voting stations in 18 municipalities across the island, from the capital, Nuuk, just below the Arctic circle, to the remote northern outpost of Siorapaluk, which has 24-hour darkness during winter. About 72% of Greenland's nearly 40,000 voters took part despite sub-zero temperatures in many places.
The plan is expected to be approved by the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments and to go into effect on June 21, the island's national day.
"The tears are running down my cheeks," said Greenland's prime minister, Hans Enoksen. "We have said yes to the right of self-determination, and with this we have accepted a great responsibility."
Drilling for oil and gas in the ocean off Greenland's west coast resumed in 2001, three decades after a previous effort. Exploration so far has been unsuccessful, but other countries in the northern region are staking their claims to natural resources exposed by the melting of the Arctic ice cap.
The plan is meant to allow the eventual phasing out of an annual Danish subsidy of about 3.5bn kroner (£380m), which accounts for two-thirds of the island's economy. It would give Greenland the first 75m kroner of annual oil revenue, with any income beyond that shared equally between Greenland and Denmark.
The current agreement states that the first 500 million kroner of oil revenue should be shared equally, and that the division of any amount beyond that must be negotiated.
Greenland became a Danish colony in 1775 and remained so until 1953, when Denmark revised its constitution and made the island a province. Under the 1979 home rule act, Greenland got its own parliament and government and self-determination in healthcare, schools and social services. Foreign and military affairs are controlled by Copenhagen, and Denmark's Queen Margrethe is the head of state.
All of Greenland's main political groups supported greater autonomy except the small opposition Democrats, who questioned whether the island could afford to take over the more than 30 new areas of responsibility outlined in the referendum.