Leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) are happy with the Fiji government’s roadmap for elections in 2014 according to acting permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Pita Wise.
He said the MSG nations have agreed to help lobby for Fiji to regain its place in the Pacific Islands Forum and be able to participate in important trade discussions.
“The leaders have also accepted to lobby for Fiji to the international community,” Wise told FijiLive from Vanuatu this morning, where the MSG talks, attended by Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, ended yesterday.
Bainimarama was invited to meet the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu after the three MSG leaders made plans during the PALM 5 summit in Japan in May to meet with the Fijian leader to find out what Fiji was doing to return to democracy.
Wise said the MSG had accepted the Fiji government's presentation on the roadmap to democracy, launched by Bainimarama last week.
Meanwhile the Fiji government in statement this week expressed concern that it’s continued exclusion from regional trade meetings will “permanently fragment” the Pacific island countries.
The government said it is imperative that it be involved in further talks on the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER), and the Pacific Islands Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA).
Fiji has been excluded from meetings and discussions of the Pacific Islands Forum after being suspended in May for failing to announce a 2009 general election date before May 1.
Leaders of the remaining 15 PIF member countries will meet in Cairns, Australia next month, and it is likely that the proposed Pacific free trade agreements will again surface.
However, the government has warned that to discuss them without Fiji’s presence would be “unlawful”.
The Forum is yet to respond.
