Writethru: South Pacific summit opens amid row, call for cooperation

Leaders from 16 South Pacific nations started their annual meeting on regional cooperation Tuesday in Nadi, Fiji, amid fears that it is to be overshadowed by the diplomatic row between Australia and its neighbors.

Australia has accused Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands for harboring wanted Australian lawyer Julian Moti who is on child sex charges.

Canberra has suspended ministerial contacts with Port Moresby. And Australian-led police officers have raided the office of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in the country's capital of Honiara last Friday in search of evidence of Moti's clandestine journey from PNG to the Solomons.

In an apparent reference to the raid of Sogavare's office, the outgoing chairman of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Michael Somare from PNG told the opening ceremony that any regional cooperation "must be based on mutual respect."

Echoing the remarks, Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase went further to call for "no interference of sovereignty" of other countries.

Both Somare and Qarase, together with their counterparts from two other Melanesian countries of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, have issued a statement to condemn the raid on the eve of the forum meeting.

In response to the condemnation, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has denied any role of Australia in the raid and in return called for fight of corruption and poor governance in the region.

Somare also said the raid of Sogavare's office will pose a " serious question" to the purpose of RAMSI, an Australian-led regional assistance mission to help maintain social order in the Solomon Islands.

He said the action would undermine the importance of RAMSI as a regional initiative of cooperation.

The Solomon Islands is threatening to oust RAMSI from its soil in retaliation of the raid. But some leaders at the forum, including Howard and his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark, said the regional mission is still necessary to the stability in the Solomons and the region.

There have been concerns in the region that the diplomatic dispute would dominate the forum meeting, which is supposed to focus on regional cooperation.

The opening ceremony featured grass skirts and recitals, which are meant to, according to organizers, "provide occasions that enable the community to feel together, think together and communicate together."

A key task of the two-day forum leaders' meeting is to discuss the Pacific Plan, which was adopted at last year's forum in PNG to set up the roadmap for strengthening and deepening regional cooperation and integration.

Both Somare and Qarase spoke highly of the progress made in the implementation of the plan, calling for more efforts to continue the momentum.

Qarase said regional cooperation will be weakened without the participation of all nations in the region, calling Australia and New Zealand to allow wider market access to regional participants.

The PIF, set up in 1971, groups Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Source: Xinhua