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NIUE: Pacific leaders began talks Tuesday on what action to take after Fiji's military regime broke a promise to hold elections by March next year and its leader boycotted the regional summit.
The Pacific Islands Forum leaders' summit was to be formally opened later Tuesday in the tiny Pacific island nation of Niue but Fiji was on the agenda of a series of bilateral meetings between 15 other forum members earlier in the day.
Fiji's self-appointed interim prime minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama announced in Suva on Monday he would boycott the forum, which groups Australia, New Zealand and 14 Pacific Island nations.
He had been expected to face a hostile reception over his decision last month to renege on a promise given to last year's forum summit to hold elections to restore democracy by March 2009.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters the forum's leaders' retreat on Wednesday would consider its response to Fiji's "contempt for democracy" since the December 2006 military coup.
"I think this is a direct and deliberate slight and snub to the leaders of the Pacific Island countries assembled here in Niue," Rudd said of the boycott.
"We will be discussing, today and tomorrow, the forum countries' reaction to that," he told reporters between bilateral meetings.
"The challenge for us in these meetings is to uphold and stand firmly behind that principle of democracy."
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said it would be up to forum leaders to decide what action to take.
But she added she was sure a report from a group of forum foreign ministers who held talks with Bainimarama's regime would be supported by leaders.
The report says political will is the only thing standing in the way of holding the elections by the March deadline.
"What I'm hearing from others who've been to Fiji is that the commodore is not just baulking at the commitment for March 2009," Clark said Tuesday.
"There is no timetable for 2009, 2010, 2012 or any other time," she said.
Bainimarama has threatened to withdraw from the forum if it continues to oppose his plans to change Fiji's electoral system before holding elections.
Clark said there was a sense of "deja vu," referring to Zimbabwe's quitting of the Commonwealth due to its pressure over President Robert Mugabe's repressive regime.
- AFP/yb
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