Although no confirmed date has been set for the Pacific Foreign Ministers to meet about the make-up of the Pacific Islands Forum, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said as the host of this year’s Leaders Forum, he has written to invite Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to attend the meet.
O’Neill has told The Australian that he welcomes Bainimarama as a member of the Forum community.
He said Bainimarama has done the right thing in reinstating a democratic government, and there is no reason why he should not fully participate in the leader’s meeting.
The Australian said Bainimarama’s presence at or absence from the next forum summit, in PNG, threatens to overshadow the meeting.
The newspaper also said that Bainimarama wants Australia or New Zealand forced out of the Pacific Islands Forum that they chiefly fund, and new countries admitted.
Steven Ciobo, who was recently appointed Parliamentary Secretary to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and to Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb, returned to Australia over the weekend from his first official visit to Suva, where he met Foreign Minister Inoke Kubuobola.
Ciobo said he had “expressed the view that Australia respectfully disagrees” with being levered out of the Pacific Islands Forum.
He said Australia holds the belief that ongoing dialogue is important, to which Fiji agrees.
Ciobo said Bishop has consistently stressed both the importance of the relationship with Fiji, and that Australia is a neighbour within the Pacific.
Bishop, seeking to defuse the clash with Suva over the forum and other regional organisations, last year announced with Kubuabola that a meeting would be held in Sydney in March to discuss such structures.
The meeting planned for last month, to which foreign ministers from the region were invited, was postponed. This was attributed to difficulties in aligning diaries.
Fijivillage has sent questions to Prime Minister Bainimarama and Foreign Minister Kubuabola.
We are awaiting their response.
