Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko

"With the greatest respect to all of you; the spur of the moment comment by Minister JT was careless and wrong; and happened at a time when we have days before the leaders of two of the world’s greatest economies are coming. 

“Let’s also appreciate that the words were aimed at those who were cyber bullying his daughter; but we in government caucus also felt offended that a national leader should never utter such words. As a result both the good Minister and PM have apologized. 

He said the Foreign Affairs Minister has apologized to the people of Papua New Guinea for the remarks he made on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Marape said he was also offended by Tkatchenko’s remarks, labelling social media critics of his daughter as “primitive animals”, but had accepted the minister’s apology and asked all Papua New Guineans to do likewise and forgive.

“We should not be labelling our citizens as ‘primitive animals’ even if they have wronged us” he said.

He says the agenda will include discussions on Indonesia’s sovereignty, and their handling of the West Papuan issues and how these issues affect Papua New Guineans and the people of West Papua.

Tkatchenko says, “There’s been a lot of allegations about human rights issues that have been brought up with the Pacific Islands Forum and also with the governments, previous governments and governments of Papua New Guinea over many years.”