18 Jun 2008

New Caledonia's FLNKS keen to attend NAM summit and UN General Assembly

1:42 pm on 18 June 2008

New Caledonia's pro-independence FLNKS movement says it wants to deepen its international links and plans to send a delegation to the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement as well as the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

This has been disclosed by the FLNKS secretary-general, Victor Tutugoro, in an interview with the Noumea daily, Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes.

Mr Tutugoro says his movement boosted its regional presence by attending last month's Port Vila summit of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

He also says in a globalised world there is no totally independent country any more but the sovereignty to choose one's interdependence.

Mr Tutugoro has also dismissed the call by the rival anti-independence camp to purge the independence question for New Caledonia from the political agenda.

A vote on the issue is provided for in the Noumea Accord before 2018.

He says there is no need to try to change the approach, adding that historically the demand for independence only ends once it has been achieved.