East Timorese president Jose Ramos-Horta has criticised Solomon Island’s Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare over his security pact with Beijing while urging “serious” pacific leaders to be “sensitive” to their neighbours.
“Don’t bring in extraterritorial, regional, interest powers that might not be welcomed by our neighbours,” Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and president of East Timor, said at the National Press Club on Sept. 7.
“Any rational Timorese leader would never do anything that without taking into consideration the sensitivities of [their] neighbours. So that would be my message to my brothers and sisters in pacific islands,” he said.
Ramos-Horta’s comment came a day after Sogavare lambasted Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong for offering to fund his country’s election, calling the offer “foreign interference” and an “assault” on the Solomons democracy….