24-7-2007

FISHNG RIGHTS MAIN ISSUE FOR COOK ISLANDS AT FORUM LEADERS MEETING

The Prime Minister Jim Marurai and Foreign Affairs Minister Wilkie Rassmussen met with Pacific Island Forum Secretariat secretary general Greg Urwin last week in Rarotonga to discuss the 38th forum leaders summit agenda. Tonga will host the October 2007 forum. Urwin says part of the forum meeting will discuss ways at setting up regional organisations and how they can work together to provide the best service for Pacific Islands governments. Urwin will visit all forum states to brief leaders on the main agenda of the meeting and find out their concerns and the issues they want to talk about at the meeting in mid-October. Marurai says one of the main issues the Cook Islands would like to push at the meeting will be fishing rights and arrangements inside it's own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It's not decided at this stage whether both ministers will attend the forum.