The US presidential envoy leading negotiations to renew agreements with three Pacific island states on Wednesday said that he would visit them next week hoping to make progress ahead of a trip to the region by US President Joe Biden later this month.
Joseph Yun said that he would be in Micronesia on Monday, and would then visit Palau and the Marshall Islands.
“We want to make progress,” Yun said, referring to talks to renew so-called Compact for Free Association (COFA) agreements with the three states.
Photo: Reuters
Under the agreements, due to expire this year and next, the US retains responsibility for the islands’ defense and gains exclusive access to huge strategic swaths of the Pacific.
The White House on Tuesday said that Biden would become the first sitting US president to visit the Pacific islands state of Papua New Guinea following the G7 summit in Japan, underscoring his administration’s investment in the Pacific region to counter China.
Papua New Guinean Minister of Foreign Affairs Justin Tkachenko said that Biden would sign defense and surveillance agreements with Papua New Guinea during the May 22 visit that renews the strategic importance of the nation.
A US National Security Council official said that they had “nothing to preview at this time.”
Washington has already signed memorandums of understanding on future assistance with the three COFA states, but these still need to be finalized.
Yun last month said that he was very optimistic that they would be and that the US Congress would approve them in a short time, but there was still some hard work ahead.
He said that Washington needed to accelerate diplomatic “catch up” with the Pacific island region in the face of Chinese competition.
The agreements with the three nations would provide them with a total of about US$6.5 billion over 20 years, he said.
In a letter late last year, more than 100 arms-control, environmental and other groups urged the Biden administration to formally apologize to the Marshall Islands for the impact of US nuclear testing there in the 1940s and 1950s, and to provide fair compensation.
Marshall Islanders are still plagued by health and environmental effects of the 67 US nuclear bomb tests from 1946 to 1958.
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