US authorities will not pay Iceland a special fee for clean-up and other costs relating to the military’s departure, according to a report in Fréttabladid today. Instead the military’s assets on the base will be handed over to Iceland to meet those costs. A limited company will be founded to manage those assets in accordance with decisions made by a politically appointed body.
The agreement on the military’s departure and the future of the defense agreement will be made public today. According to Fréttabladid’s sources, the US still considers itself responsible for defending Iceland as per the defense agreement from 1951. On the other hand, the paper reports that the portion of the new agreement relating to military response if Iceland is threatened is worded in a very general way, and information to do with those responses is classified as top secret.
