{"id":55636,"date":"2024-11-27T17:00:46","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T13:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/?p=55636"},"modified":"2024-11-27T17:00:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T13:30:46","slug":"us-boosts-fiji-military-ties-in-historic-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/55636\/us-boosts-fiji-military-ties-in-historic-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"US boosts Fiji military ties in \u2018historic\u2019 visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Austin, on his 12th trip to the region as defence secretary, said negotiations had started on a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Fiji, which would enable the US to &#8220;deploy and redeploy forces in support of Fiji&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It would also &#8220;help us train with the Fijians on a very routine basis,&#8221; he said alongside Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in a press conference live-streamed from the city of Nadi, on Fiji&#8217;s main island Viti Levu.<\/p>\n<p>The US also pledged $4.9 million to support Fiji&#8217;s military modernisation and signed a bilateral logistics cooperation deal, according to a defence department statement.<\/p>\n<p>Austin&#8217;s visit to Fiji was the first by a US Secretary of Defense to the strategically located nation of around 1 million people, comprising an archipelago of 322 islands.<\/p>\n<p>It was the last stop on a trip that also took him to Australia, the Philippines and Laos.<\/p>\n<p>Rabuka said Fiji looked forward &#8220;to continuing to work closely with the United States going forward, including with the new incoming Trump administration&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Austin said the close US-Fiji relationship would &#8220;endure far beyond transition of administrations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The high profile visit comes after Fiji this year agreed to maintain a policing co-operation deal with China, amid a tussle for influence between Beijing and Washington in the Asia-Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>MNA\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Austin, on his 12th trip to the region as defence secretary, said negotiations had started on a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Fiji, which would enable the US to &#8220;deploy and redeploy forces in support of Fiji&#8221;. It would also &#8220;help us train with the Fijians on a very routine basis,&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[7103,7100,7110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accidents-en","category-international-en","category-politic-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}