The leaders of the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum meet for two days from Tuesday in Cairns, with hosts Australia keen to tackle the issues of global recession, a new regional trade deal and climate change.
Fiji will be absent after being suspended from forum meetings in January over broken promises by the country’s military leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama to hold elections by March this year to restore democracy.
Commodore Bainimarama said in April — following the abrogation of the constitution and introduction of media censorship — that elections had been put back to September 2014.
Attempts by the region’s two largest powers — Australia and New Zealand — to put the Fiji issue aside for now may be frustrated after a summit in July of the Melanesian Spearhead Group — Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.
In a communiqué at the end of their meeting in the Vanuatu capital, Port Vila, Fiji’s closest neighbors called on the forum to maintain an “open and constructive dialogue” with the regime.
The communiqué stopped short of specifically calling for Fiji’s reinstatement to the forum but noted “the importance of Fiji being continuously engaged” in the regional grouping.
The MSG leaders also said Fiji had to be involved in regional trade liberalization negotiations due to be launched at the forum meeting. Without Fiji’s participation, any decisions by the other forum members would be invalid, they said.
