{"id":236537,"date":"2026-01-16T15:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236537\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T15:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:45:15","slug":"winston-peters-off-to-kiribati-year-after-being-snubbed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236537\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston Peters off to Kiribati year after being snubbed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K5B14E_250624_Winston_Peters_1_2_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"250624_bridge_war_Conflict\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nWinston Peters will be the first New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister to visit all 17 members of the Pacific Islands Forum.<br \/>\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters leaves for Kiribati on Sunday after being snubbed by the country&#8217;s president last year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4K0A0CU_un71119186_jpg.jpeg\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Kiribati President David Adeang at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nTaneti Maamau<br \/>\nPhoto: UN Photo\n<\/p>\n<p>Peters said the government was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/pacific\/540851\/winston-peters-handling-of-kiribati-relations-criticised-by-pacific-expert\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rethinking development support<\/a> last February after Kiribati President Taneti Maamau withdrew a week before a planned visit.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand gave Kiribati NZ$102 million from 2021 to 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Peters&#8217; upcoming trip will be the first time a New Zealand Foreign Minister has visited the Pacific Island nation since 2019, when he last visited.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;New Zealand is a steadfast partner with Kiribati. We are committed to building on our long-standing relationship across a range of areas, as we work together to enhance resilience, prosperity and security in the Pacific,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Kiribati is the last Pacific Island Forum member country for Peters to visit this term, making him the first Foreign Affairs Minister to visit all 17 member countries in office.<\/p>\n<p>He will also make a stop in Palau as it prepares to host the region&#8217;s leading assembly, the Pacific Islands Forum, this year.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/political\/572710\/new-zealand-to-host-the-2027-pacific-islands-forum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">due to host the forum<\/a> in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;New Zealand and Palau are coordinating closely on the critical regional issues for the Pacific as we both prepare to host the forum,&#8221; Peters said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We look forward to continuing our engagement with Palau, which is a world leader on marine resource management.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It will be Peters&#8217; second time in Palau this term, having led a Ministerial delegation there in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Peters departs on Sunday and returns next Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winston Peters will be the first New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister to visit all 17 members of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-236537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}