MAJURO — While negotiators from the Federated States of Micronesia and the United States are expected to initialize a new 20-year funding package at the end of May, Marshall Islands and U.S. negotiators remain far apart.
No formal negotiating sessions between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands have been held since last December, as negotiators have begun trading counter proposals. The Marshalls is seeking $68 million annually but the U.S. has countered with an offer of just $31.8 million.
Marshall Islands Compact negotiators are preparing to issue a new counter proposal to Washington, possibly as early as next week. Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Gerald Zackios said yesterday that he does not want to have another formal round of Compact talks until the U.S. has seen the Marshall Islands counter proposal and replied to this counter proposal so that the two sides can begin to make more substantive progress in the talks.
Zackios said the Marshall Islands was still waiting for a formal reply from the U.S. on the Marshall Islands request for discussions about extending the term of U.S. use of the Kwajalein missile range, the primary American testing area for missile defense technology. Zackios said the Marshall Islands was also awaiting for draft subsidiary agreements on the weather service and disaster services through the Federal Emergency Management Agency that have yet to be provided by Washington.
After last December’s formal negotiating session in Hawaii, negotiators indicated a tentative plan for follow up negotiations in Majuro in late February. That was postponed until March, then postponed until late April and has now been delayed indefinitely, pending progress on the counter offers being exchanged.
Zackios said it is possible that the next formal round of talks could take place in a month or so, but this would depend on both sides getting closer on funding issues.
Zackios said the next round of formal talks needs to take place, as planned, in the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islands chief negotiator Robert Muller noted that U.S. State Department head negotiator Albert Short hasn’t visited the Marshall Islands since assuming his job as chief negotiator last year.
After more than two years of negotiations, U.S. and FSM officials are reportedly close to an agreement. The U.S. is now offering the FSM $72 million annually for 20 years compared to the FSM request of $79 million. It represents a substantial increase from the U.S.’s first offer to the FSM in 2000. FSM and U.S. negotiators are expected to meet at the end of May in San Francisco, where parts or all of the new funding proposal are expected to be initialed by both sides.
