New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Kiribati President Anote Tong have discussed the agenda for the Niue Pacific leaders' summit in August, focusing on the aid for Kiribati and Fiji issue, the New Zealand Herald daily reported on Tuesday.
Clark said they discussed "the importance of keeping forum unity" on the issue of Fiji, having achieved unity at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga last year and at the forum Foreign Ministers meeting on Fiji in Auckland in March.
During their meeting here on Monday, Tong and Clark also discussed the increased aid New Zealand was giving to the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati - from 3.5 million NZ dollars (2.75 million U.S. dollars) in the present financial year and growing to 6 million NZ dollars in the next.
Clark said they discussed a program to help the country to deal with overcrowding in South Tarawa where 46,000 lived.
The aid would also provide more support for the Kiribati marine training center. The center was an important institution because its graduates working on boats provided 15 percent of Kiribati's gross national income.
Tong took part in the United Nation's World Environment Day events hosted last week by New Zealand.
Clark said that at the forum in Tonga last year, Fiji's interim leader and military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, "made a lot of commitments."
"But they seem to be being observed more in the breach than anything else and the forum will have to wrestle again with those issues this time," she added.
Bainimarama has promised to hold elections by the end of next March and a new People's Charter - yet to be put to the vote in a referendum - will have to be in place before the election.
Source:Xinhua
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