Cook Islands, through Associate Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration Tingika Elikana has called on the United States to formalise a high level dialogue mechanism with the Pacific if it is committed to deeper engagement with the Pacific.

The call was delivered during a Roundtable Exchange last Friday co-hosted by Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister and Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and the United States Secretary of State (SoS), Antony J. Blinken in the margins of SoS Blinken’s visit to Fiji. 

The Roundtable Exchange included a number of Pacific Leaders, many of whom called for greater engagement by the U.S. with the region including on climate change, economic resilience, oceans cooperation and regional integration.  

Elikana put forward three suggestions that could support deeper engagement between the region and the U.S. and bolster the economic resilience of the Blue pacific. These included a large scale multi-year economic recovery package for the Pacific financed by the Pacific’s development partners including the U.S. to assist with recovery from the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; an expanded oceans cooperation agenda between the U.S. and the Pacific; and the formalisation of a high-level dialogue mechanism between the United States and the Pacific, similar to that of the triennial Japan Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM). 

The Cook Islands various oceans related co-operation arrangements with the U.S. including the multilateral Fisheries Treaty between the United States and the Pacific is a cornerstone of the its relationship with the U.S. 

There is a proud history of close bilateral cooperation in fisheries and maritime surveillance and enforcement between the two Governments which operate under the 2008 ‘Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Cook Islands Concerning Cooperation in Joint Maritime Surveillance Operations’. 

According to Secretary of Marine Resources Pamela Maru, the 2008 agreement “has provided a valuable platform for many activities over the years within the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone, and training opportunities for Cook Islands officers with the U.S. Coast Guard in bilateral and regional operations throughout the region”. 

Most recently the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Juniper patrolled the Cook Islands EEZ and high seas to help deter Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activity.