Foreign relations of Papua New Guinea
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Papua New Guinea |
 This article is part of the series: |
|
|
|
Other countries · Atlas Politics Portal |
Papua New Guinea's foreign policy reflects close ties with Australia and other traditional allies and cooperative relations with neighboring countries. Its views on international political and economic issues are generally moderate. Papua New Guinea has diplomatic relations with 56 countries.
Papua New Guinea belongs to a variety of regional organizations, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum; the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) (Papua New Guinea is an observer member of the ASEAN); the South Pacific Commission; the Pacific Islands Forum; the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program (SPREP).
The U.S. and Papua New Guinea are signatories to the U.S.-Pacific Islands Multilateral Tuna Fisheries Treaty, under which the U.S. grants $18 million per year to Pacific Island parties and the latter provide access for U.S. fishing vessels. The U.S. also supports Papua New Guinea's efforts to protect biodiversity; the International Coral Reef Initiative is aimed at protecting reefs in tropical nations such as Papua New Guinea.
As of November 2005, relations with Pacific neighbour Fiji have been strained by revelations that a number of Fijian mercenaries have been operating illegally on the island of Bougainville, arming and training a rebel militia.
Relations with Australia were strained in 2006 when Prime Minister Michael Somare was accused of having facilitated Julian Moti's escape to the Solomon Islands [1]. Moti was wanted in Australia for serious alleged child sex offences. In retaliation, the Australian government banned Somare from entering Australia; all talks between Canberra and Port Moresby were suspended. In September 2007, relations began to thaw [2], and in December 2007, the new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, met Sir Michael in Bali. Rudd announced what appears to be a normalisation of relations: "This relationship has been through a very difficult period in recent times. There has in effect been a freeze on ministerial contact between the two governments. I do not believe that's an appropriate way for the future." [3]
[edit] See also
|
|||||||||||||
