Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa at the 99th USP Council Meeting in Auckland. 21 May 2025 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis
Samoa's caretaker Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa backs the Solomon Islands' plan to essentially block at least twenty countries from participating at a key Pacific meeting in just over three weeks' time.
"Samoa supports [the] proposal to defer dialogue meetings to next year," Fiame Naomi Mata'afa told RNZ Pacific.
This comes just one week after ABC reported Fiamē threatened to boycott the meeting if Solomon Islands blocks Taiwan from attending the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Honiara.
She has since told RNZ Pacific that a deferral would allow Forum leaders to focus on organisational issues, including receiving reports from a review of external partners and the regional architecture review.
The changes are the leaders' response to increasing interest from nations that want a seat - and a say - at the regional decision-making table.
If the Solomon Islands Prime Minister's plan is endorsed at this week's Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Fiji, China, the US, and 19 other partners would not be invited to the Honiara summit scheduled from 8-12 September.
"What we are saying here is, let's give some more time for the region to put the process a new process in place so that we can effectively engage with our partners going forward, not now, but the later stage, once we are ready," Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told local reporters in a news conference on Friday.
In May, Fiamē told RNZ Pacific that with "every man and his dog coming into the Pacific", it is difficult for small Pacific Island administrations to navigate evolving geopolitical interests.
"The geopolitical situation [in the] Pacific is becoming very contested. It is becoming very congested."
"But their basic question is: Is Pacific unity still there? Do we still want it? If we do, what do we want it to look like?"
Asked if Pacific unity was still there, she said: "We say it is. But in practice, I personally think that there is fragmentation.
"There is always that conflict between the collective and national interests and so forth. We really do have to be thinking about what is it, in regionalism, that we want to make sure stays?"
Pacific Island's Forum Leader's retreat 2024 Vava'u. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
Pacific foreign ministers are meeting in Suva on Thursday for the final high-level meeting in a suite of gatherings ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting.
They will consider the region's ongoing efforts to strengthen and deepen Pacific regionalism in the face of intensifying geopolitical competition in the region, the PIF Secretariat said.
The Crown Prince of Tonga Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala - who is also the Kingdom's Foreign Affairs Minister - will chair this year's Foreign Ministers Meeting.
Hu'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, right, and Crown Prince of Tonga Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala in Nuku'alofa. August 2024 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis
