His prime minister Denmark Mete Frederiksen announced today that she will not run for him Jens Stoltenbergwho is due to step down as NATO Secretary General at the end of this year.

“I am not a candidate for this position,” she told reporters in Copenhagen.

Speculation about Frederiksen as a strong candidate intensified after her name was published in a report by the Norwegian newspaper VG last month.

The race for the next head of NATO is heating up. But this is a race that is mostly run in the dark and there are no favorites yet.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian secretary general of the transatlantic military alliance, is due to step down at the end of September after nine years in office. Many members of the alliance would like its succession to be decided during the NATO summit in Lithuania in mid-July or even earlier.

^{According to Reuters}