President Tommy Remengesau Jr. will join the other heads of states of the Freely Associated States (FAS) for the annual Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS) and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) talks in Majuro.

The summit, which will bring together presidents of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and Federated States of Micronesia, is scheduled from February 27 to 28.

The annual meeting will be an opportunity for the leaders to discuss issues   ranging from climate change, fisheries and relationship with the United States under the Compact of Free Association agreement.

For the first time, the FAS leaders have also invited the presidents of Nauru and Kiribati to join this year’s summit.

In last year’s MPS summit, the leaders agreed to invite Nauru and Kiribati presidents to participate in the meeting.

President Remengesau, FSM President Peter Christian and RMI President Hilda Heine noted the “need to further collaborate on sub-regional issues that includes Nauru and Kiribati.”

Nauru and Kiribati have been   interested in joining the summit and participate in talks on various areas of cooperation affecting the Micronesian region.

Kiribati, like the four other nations has few natural resources and relies mostly on fishing and the sale of fishing rights.

Nauru’s only economically significant natural resources are phosphates, and fisheries particularly for tuna.

The other issues that the presidents are also are expected to tackle include health, drought, Micronesian Shipping Commission, transnational crime units and small island states funding.

The PNA summit scheduled on March 2, meanwhile will follow closely on the MPS talks.

Palau is a member of the PNA bloc that controls the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery.

PNA Members are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and heads of state from Tuvalu, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Nauru, FSM, RMI and Palau are expected to join take part in the summit.

This is the second leaders summit with Palau hosting the first talks in 2010.

The eight signatories collectively control 25–30 percent of the world’s tuna supply and approximately 60 percent of the western and central Pacific tuna supply.

The PNA also instituted several initiatives to protect its fishing resources to sustainably manage purse-seine fishing in their waters. (Bernadette H. Carreon)