BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
The Pacific Maritime Security Workshop held in Honiara from 23-24 July aims to look at how best maritime security in the region can be coordinated among Pacific Island countries and their key partners.
Professor Joanne Wallis of Stretton Institute’s security Research programme, University of Adelaide expressed this during an interview with Island Sun.
She said the Pacific Ocean is incredibly important, however faces several challenges.
“Pacific Islands Forum leaders were right when they described the crowded and complex geopolitics of the Pacific, so it was important to not only have a conversation between Pacific Island countries, but also the partner countries about how maritime security assistance could best be coordinated,” said Wallis.
She said the concept of maritime security is very broad and there are a lot of different understandings about what it means.
“We want to make sure that we’re all talking about the same ideas when we’re having conversations. Because there is a risk that a partner country might talk about security in one way, but a Pacific Island country might be hearing that and understanding security in a different way. And people can be having a conversation without really reaching an understanding,” she said.
Wallis stated that one objective is to plan and think about how coordination can better occur in the maritime domain.
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