BY IRWIN ANGIKI
Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has pushed back at ‘unfortunate’ international media narrative describing his government as ‘blocking’ forum dialogue partners from attending this year’s leaders’ meeting.
The 54th Forum leaders meeting (PIFLM) will be held in Honiara from September 8-12 this year.
Dialogue partner countries which usually hold post-Forum meetings outside of the main leaders’ meeting will not be attending this year’s one-week event because they have not been invited.
This is because Solomon Islands’ government as host has decided to ‘defer’ the post-forum dialogue for next year.
International media have labelled this as Manele’s government ‘blocking’ the dialogue partners which include ‘US, China, Taiwan’ from attending the PIF leaders meeting. (Taiwan is regarded as a dialogue partner but is missing from the Forum’s list of 21 dialogue partners in the Forum website)
But Manele told a press conference Friday last week this narrative is misleading.
“The decision is we are not blocking anyone. We are basically deferring the post-forum dialogue meeting until our arrangements are in place so that we implement decisions that leaders made during the last forum in Tonga.
“It is unfortunate that there are media interests, of course, country interests represented by certain media platforms using different terminologies.
“We are not blocking, we are not excluding anyone,” PM Manele said.
Manele reiterated that the decision to defer the post-forum dialogue was made in the best interest of the Pacific Forum countries, and has the support of the Forum’s Troika Plus – a sub-group comprising the current chair (Tonga), past chair (Cook Islands), incoming chair (Solomon Islands) and the future chair (Palau).
“It is the Pacific’s collective interest that this deferment will provide Forum officials and members additional time to refine the tiering criteria by December 2025 and enable its adoption by Foreign Ministers in early 2026.
“This deferment will also allow our partners adequate time to understand, respond to, and adapt to the reformed engagement process for genuine and effective collaboration,” Manele said.
“The collective interest of the region takes precedence to reform the partnership and engagement mechanism of the Forum.”
Last week, following PM Manele’s announcement in parliament on Wednesday on the deferment, international media described this decision as ‘blocking’ dialogue partners. Publications on suspected ‘blocking’ were also done before Manele’s parliament announcement.
This narrative is in connection to suspicion that the Solomon Islands government was under pressure from China to exclude Taiwan from the September talks.
China has been insisting in its media statements that it respects the sovereignty of the Solomon Islands and Pacific partner countries and does not interfere with internal matters.
However, on matters involving Taiwan, China flaunts the One China principle.
“China’s position on the Taiwan region’s engagement in the activities of international organisations is consistent and clear,” a PRC embassy to the Island Sun yesterday said.
“That is, it must be handled in line with the one-China principle. The one-China principle is a basic norm in international relations and a prevailing international consensus demonstrated by UNGA Resolution 2758. Taiwan is part of China’s territory, not a sovereign state. Taiwan is neither qualified no ever accepted as a dialogue partner or observer of PIF,” the embassy said.
