The Pacific Islands nation of Fiji will send a delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Villiame Gavoka to Israel before opening an embassy in Jerusalem in 2024, Fiji officials say, fulfilling an election promise by Gavoka’s political party.
A large delegation will travel on a specially chartered Fiji Airways flight to attend the Festival of the Tabernacles in Israel which runs from September 29 to October 6, the officials said.
Fiji would open an embassy in Jerusalem next year, a spokeswoman from the Fiji prime minister’s office said.
“The establishment of the embassy represents a significant milestone in Fiji’s diplomatic relations with Israel,” she told Reuters in an email.
Last month Pacific Islands neighbour Papua New Guinea (PNG) opened an embassy in Jerusalem, becoming only the fifth country with a full diplomatic mission in a city whose status is one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East.
PNG joined embassies from the United States, Kosovo, Guatemala and Honduras in Jerusalem, while most countries maintain their diplomatic representation in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel’s main economic hub.
PNG’s decision was driven by church groups in the deeply Christian Pacific nation, and Prime Minister James Marape said Israel would pay the embassy’s costs for two years.
Read the article by Dan Williams and Kirsty Needham in The Goulburn Post.