By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The leaders of five Pacific island nations said on Tuesday that U.S. President Joe Biden would soon visit their region for a leaders’ summit.
The leaders of the Pacific’s five Micronesian nations, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), met on Monday and issued a communique on Tuesday saying they had discussed the “value of a visit by U.S. President Joseph R. Biden Jr to the Pacific sometime in the near future”.
“Presidents welcomed President Biden’s planned visit for Leaders Summit in the Pacific Region and expressed their full support and cooperation to ensure the success of this visit,” they said in a statement.
The U.S. embassy covering the Pacific islands and the U.S. consulate in the Australian city of Sydney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leaders of the Pacific Island Forum, a regional bloc of 18 countries, will meet in Fiji on Feb. 24 and any invitation for a Biden visit would likely be agreed on and issued by the forum.
The United States last year stepped up its diplomacy and aid to the strategically important Pacific region after China struck a security deal with the Solomon Islands, and China attempted but failed to forge a wider security and trade pact with 10 island nations.
FSM president David Panuelo said in a statement a U.S.-Pacific Islands summit hosted by Biden at the White House in September was “an unambiguous success”.
“It will be of instrumental importance for the Pacific to ensure the United States continues to re-engage, as thoroughly as possible, with our Blue Pacific Continent,” he said.
Biden is expected to travel to Australia this year to attend a meeting of the so-called Quad group of the United States, India, Australia and Japan.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Robert Birsel)
