SOLOMON Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has urged Pacific island countries must work to address issues of regional importance.
Wale, the new Pacific Islands Forum chairman, said there were many development challenges affecting the region and stronger partnerships were needed to address them.
He joined Prime Minister James Marape during a media conference in Port Moresby on Friday.
“We are looking to Papua New Guinea not only in terms of leadership, but also collaboration to address common issues and challenges,” he said.
“We are also trying to reach consensus in the region on important issues, one of which is regional security. This was one of the main areas that we discussed.”
Wale added that the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) was another important platform that needed to be better used to focus efforts on addressing issues of its member countries.
“The MSG is an important platform that we can use to specifically focuses on our interests in the region,” he said.
“We have had some discussions around what should be happening as here have been some disappointments generally with the MSG that it could be more effective and have more robust processes in place.
“That is something that I think we must continue together to work on going forward.
“We want an MSG that is effective and not become a pushover.”
Wale said that discussions on West Papua were also brought up during his meeting with Marape, which was focused on addressing the matter in a peaceful manner that followed due process.
“We discussed briefly on the issue of our people in West Papua,” he said.
“We want to be good friends with Indonesia so we do not antagonise them.
“But we are concerned about the situation in West Papua and have made suggestions on how the dialogue with Indonesia could happen that would encourage less paranoia about the rights of our Melanesian brothers and sisters.
“There is no need to hide away from the issues of West Papua.
“We need to talk about these things openly,” Wale said.
