The Palau delegation of six to the 47th annual conference of the Pacific Islands Forum arrived on Monday in Pohnpei, capital of Federated States of Micronesia, referred to as Garden Island. The delegation headed by state minister Billy Kuartel is made up also of Pohnpei-based Palau Consul General of to FSM Anastacia Remeliik-Isaac, Foreign Affairs and Trade Director Gustav Aitaro, Chief of Foreign Affairs Jeraldine E. Tudong, Foreign Service Officer Lila Ann U. Demei, and PMC Chairman Moses Uludong.

The delegation completed its first full day on Wednesday, September 7 in the meeting of small Island States (SIS) at the huge national gym in the COM campus built by China in Palikir, The FSM capitol in Sokesh Muncicipality. The second day on Thursdaywill be the official opening ceremonyof the 47th PIFConference to be held at the PICS Track and Field to be followed by reception and dinner to be hosted by FSM.

SIS is a sub-group of the member PIF and is composed of the 8 smallest states in the Pacific including Palau, Cook Island, Tuvalu, Marshall Island, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, and Federated States of Micronesia which was admitted into SIS membership yesterday. The 8 larger and non-member states of Pacific are Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, Samoa, Solomon Island, Tonga, Vanuatu and New Zealand.

The SIS meeting addressed three topics including 1. Membership and admission of FSM to SIS; 2. Leaders request to council of Regional Organizations of Pacific (CROP) agencies to implement SIS strategy; and 3. Endorsement of SIS attachment programme.

Palau worked very hard to propose the SIS Attachment Programme during the special SIS leaders meeting in Palau in June this year and now it has been favorably endorsed and will be launched soon. 

Source : Tia Belau