Fiji says it won’t renew its membership to the Pacific Islands Forum unless Australia and New Zealand are expelled as members.

Fiji’s foreign minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, made the comments following the opening of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) Secretariat in Suva on Saturday.

The interim Prime Minister, Rear Admiral Frank Bainimarama, said the PIDF better represented the region.

“Fiji no longer believes that the Pacific Islands Forum, in its existing form, adequately serves the interests of all Pacific islanders,” he said.

“Fiji wants a fundamental realignment of the Pacific Islands Forum before it considers rejoining that organisation.”

The PIDF was established in 2012, three years after Fiji’s military-backed regime was suspended by the Pacific Islands Forum for failing to return the country to a democracy in 2009.

At the secretariat opening Bainimarama said the Fiji-based group had a single purpose.

“It is not a question of prestige or establishing yet another talk fest, it is about creating an organisation that is more attuned to our development needs as Pacific countries. It is about creating an organisation that is relatively free of interference from outsiders.”

On PIDF’s website, many member nations of the Pacific Islands’ Forum, as well as the United States and French Pacific territories and protectorates, are listed as being eligible for membership.

Australia and New Zealand are notable omissions.

The Australian parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brett Mason, says he welcomes further discussion with Fiji on how the Forum can better serve the region.

“Every nation in the Pacific recognises that Fiji is an important country in the region and we look forward to its return to the Pacific Islands Forum.”

Australia and New Zealand recently dropped travel sanctions on all members of Fiji’s regime and its military, which had been in place since the coup.

The decision is part of efforts to restore relations with Fiji in recognition of its progress towards democratic elections, with the country heading to the polls on September 17.

Mason is in Fiji this week meeting senior members of the Fiji government amid what he says are continued warming relations between the two countries.

He has held discussions with the attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in and Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola.

The Fiji government says the two officials discussed the elections and a range of bilateral, regional and global issues.

It says they also discussed a new reciprocal working holiday visa scheme.

Meanwhile, New Zealand says the preparations for elections in Fiji need to be seen positively, despite concerns from groups inside and outside the country.

The foreign minister Murray McCully says there have been improvements, and Fiji is in a process of evolving.

He says there was talk of resuscitating the International Labour Organisation mission and he hopes that happens, following its aborted mission in 2012 when it was unhappy with the conditions imposed on it by the Fiji government.

McCully says such a visit would be one example of what the international community needs to see if it is going to have confidence in the election outcome, and have respect for the new institutions in place after September.

“I am well aware that there are people who have got a more critical and negative view than the one that I’ve expressed – but it’s an evolving picture and I think overwhelmingly we’ve got to acknowledge the improvements that are occurring and work with them to achieve more.”