Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko in a bilateral meeting with Indonesia counterpart Minister Retno Marsudi says PNG will respect and support Indonesia as a sovereign nation.
This was mentioned during discussion on issues regarding West Papua. Both Ministers met in Bali, Indonesia when Minister Marsudi highlighted the need for respect and sovereignty as separate nations.
“Minister Marsudi spoke in detail thanking the PNG Government and Foreign Affairs Department for recognising the issue of West Papua as an internal Indonesian matter. They are a sovereign country and like PNG we respect and support Indonesia and its sovereignty. We will work with them to resolve any issue that may come up with West Papua in PNG,” Tkatchenko said.
Minister Tkatchenko who recently visited a group of West Papuans in Gerehu, Port Moresby urged the people not to do anything that would jeopardise the working relationship between PNG and Indonesia.
He said their main concern was to receive their PNG citizenship certificate.
“West Papua is a local issue which National Capital District Commission can deal with and that is to secure the land they are living on in Gerehu. These are current issues but they need to be sorted out and finalised, especially, when the PNG government issued about 1000 citizenship certificates for West Papuans.”
He added that there were about 5000 West Papuans, who were yet to receive their citizenship to become Papua New Guineans.
“They have all applied and we will work closely with the Department of Immigration to finalise and get them to be issued their certificates. These are all the issues that were discussed in my bilateral meeting with the Indonesian Foreign Minister; all workable and doable for the benefit of both countries.”