Australia relaxes travel ban for Fijian minister

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he had invited his Fijian counterpart, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, to a trilateral meeting in Canberra on Wednesday to discuss restoring senior envoys to their posts in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully will also attend the meeting, which indicates a thaw in diplomatic relations that have been in tatters since Fiji's democratically elected government was overthrown by military commander Frank Bainimarama.

Fiji has since expelled Australian and New Zealand top envoys, known as high commissioners. Australia and New Zealand retaliated by expelling Fijian high commissioners.

Smith said he expected the meeting would start the process of restoring all diplomatic heads their former posts. Australia was not backing down from its view that Fiji must return to democracy, he said. But he added, "We've also always made the point that there's a need to have a dialogue."

Fiji's Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that Kubuabola was in Australia. He could not be immediately contacted for comment.

Bainimarama has resisted international pressure to restore democracy or to ease strict censorship before his timetable for elections in 2014.

Ron Huisken, an Asia-Pacific security expert from the Australian National University's Strategic and Defense Studies Center, said Australia's desire to thaw relations could stem from concerns about growing Chinese influence in Fiji and elsewhere in the South Pacific.

"That is a legitimate piece of speculation," Huisken said.

Bainimarama visited Beijing last year to seek aid for Fiji's sinking economy.

The Canberra meeting comes after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the Obama administration wanted to engage with the Pacific region.

Her plans to visit Australia, which regards the United States as its most important ally, as well as New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, the most populous South Pacific island nation, were canceled at the 11th hour due to the Haiti earthquake last month.

President Barack Obama is due to visit Australia in late March, as well as the Pacific U.S. territory of Guam and Indonesia, the Southeast Asian nation where he spent part of his childhood.

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