Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama said Fiji does not need Pacific Island leaders to fight it's case at the Pacific Island Forum meeting currently underway in Port Villa in Vanuatu.
The 41st Pacific Island Forum meeting is currently underway minus Fiji due to it's current suspension.
New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has told Radio New Zealand that while dialogue would continue with Fiji, sanctions such as the Pacific Island Forum suspension needed to continue.
McCully said the Forum is a club with some rules, and those rules are about democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and unfortunately we haven't been able to get Fiji to acknowledge that.
However Commodore Bainimarama during an interview with ABC's Foreign Correspondent program said Fiji has no intention of trying to get back into the forum at this stage.
Bainimarama said Fiji's exclusion from the Forum is not a major issue for him.
Meanwhile leaders from the Solomons, Australia and Tuvalu are absent because of the timing of elections in their countries, while constitutional issues in Papua New Guinea have kept its Prime Minister away.
The 41st Pacific Island Forum meeting is currently with the Secretary General Tuiloma Neori Slade addressing the Forum.
Story by: Ana Naisoro
