Prime Minister Mark Brown has a busy weekend ahead of him with bilateral talks lined up with several nations.

Brown has confirmed one on one meetings with the leaders of Canada, United States, United Kingdom, German, France and host nation Japan in Hiroshima from today.

Speaking to Cook Islands News, he said the European Union, International Energy Agency, United Nations Secretary General and World Trade Organisation are also marked in his diary for discussions.

“We are looking to expand our partnerships that we have to include some of the largest economies in the world.”

Brown said he will be obviously wearing two hats, also as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, taking wider Pacific concerns to the table.

The discussions would largely focus on increasing climate action to support Pacific Island priorities for member countries, “stressing again the importance development cooperation that will help us restore our economies on the back of Covid-19; highlighting to them from the Forum perspective”.

“It’s that we do have a 2050 strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent under my chairmanship, the preparation of an implementation plan to achieve those priorities that are in our strategy, and where these large economies of the world can fit in and help us with our implementation plan.”

PM Brown said Cook Islands will lay a wreath at the Hiroshima Memorial and visit the memorial.

“The fact that we had the Rarotonga Treaty back in 1985, that is now in this day and age becoming all the more relevant, we fully support the principal of doing away with nuclear weapons whether it’s storage, production or disposal within our region.”

As tension continues with Russia (Ukraine war) and China’s geopolitical aspirations, Brown said he was aware of developing partnerships in the Pacific. 

“In terms of the Pacific, every country values its independence and sovereignty, and who they decide to join with is entirely the decision of each country and should be respected.

“We are not totally unaware of geopolitical tensions that are growing in our region from our more traditional development partners like the US and Australia, over the interests of emerging development partners like China, but also increasingly the likes of Japan, Korea and India.

“For Pacific countries, being able to partner up with any of the development partners is critical for their development.

“The message we have sent out is that we don’t want our development partners to get into an adversarial approach, we would rather look at this region in collaboration, and help us achieve our development priorities.

“The important thing is our voice is heard, we are not here just to be a spectator. “With the growing interest in our region, it’s important that the major global players hear the voices of the Pacific and understand the voices of the Pacific, and actually listen to what we have told them what our priorities are, in areas that we appreciate their assistance in.

“A lot of my discussions will focus around the Pacific Forum; we welcome their strong participation.”

• Al Williams is in Hiroshima, Japan to cover the G7 Summit. His trip was made possible by the Embassy of Japan in New Zealand.