Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join regional leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum as tension begins to show over New Caledonia.
The Australia prime minister will arrive in Tonga late on Tuesday, joining other leaders from the 18-nation bloc.
For the most part, leaders displayed the regional unity that summit organisers have craved after a tumultuous few years.
However, on the hot-button issue of the New Caledonia, France appears on the outer.
The future of the Melanesian nation remains clouded, months after mass pro-independence protests in response to voting reforms from colonial power France produced deaths and widespread damage in the capital Noumea.
France’s Pacific Ambassador Veronique Roger-Lacan is already in Nuku’alofa, and in keeping with her provocative diplomatic style, is treading on Pacific sensibilities.
Roger-Lacan told leaders that PIF appeared divided on whether a fact-finding mission involving PIF leaders should go ahead, provoking New Zealand deputy prime minister Winston Peters into a sharp response.
“I suggest that the Ambassador get in contact with her boss now and again when she’s making those sort of comments, because they’re not helpful,” Peters said.
Moetai Brotherson, president of another another overseas French territory, French Polynesia, also attacked France’s handling of the crisis.
“France has always had problems with decolonisation and the road to self-determination,” he said.
“They definitely have to change the way they read the situation … they have to trust the voices of the Pacific about those issues more than their own diplomacy.”
New PIF chair Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni said he wanted further talks “on the fringe of the Forum” with both parties before leaders considered the issue more fully at the leaders retreat on Thursday.
Albanese arrives in time to represent Australia at that all-day, closed-door retreat, but he will miss United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is leaving as the Australian leader arrives.
Alongside Albanese, two other heavyweight leaders are arriving late: Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele and New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Luxon.
Both are attending their first PIF summits, though Manele has been foreign minister previously, and both may also be courting controversy.
Manele is reportedly seeking to exclude Taiwan, a dialogue partner, from future meetings, including the next one, due to be held in Honiara.
The Australian reports Manele is doing so under pressure from China, though the move is destined to fail as three PIF members maintain diplomatic ties with Taipei.
Luxon has set off alarm bells in the Pacific with his push to reopen Kiwi waters to oil and gas exploration, which on Monday he announced would be law by year’s end.
