Niue and Tuvalu officially establish diplomatic relations
Premier Tagelagi and Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe sign agreement over the weekend, in Suva.
Premier Dalton Tagelagi who is in Fiji this week for the 51st Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, over the weekend signed the agreement to establish diplomatic relations with the island nation of Tuvalu.
A signing ceremony was held at the Tuvalu High Commission in Suva, where Premier Tagelagi and Tuvalu’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Simon Kofe officially established diplomatic relations between two of the Pacific’s smallest island nations, Niue and Tuvalu.
Premier Tagelagi and Minister Kofe expressed the desire of both countries to promote mutual understanding and to strengthen friendship and cooperation among their two peoples.
Niue and Tuvalu also recognized that climate change is an existential threat to Tuvalu and a shared global problem.
Tuvalu and Niue have historical links as Polynesian countries with the Niue missionaries serving in Tuvalu in the late 1800s. This historical relationship was further strengthened in the early 1990s when the Niue government provided opportunities for families from Tuvalu to relocate and help re-populate the village of Vaiea.
Since then, the local Tuvaluan community has grown and the village of Vaiea which used to be the smallest village is now the 7th largest of the fourteen villages on the island.
In the 2017 national census, Tuvaluans make up the largest ‘with 24.4 percent of the total ‘other ethnicity group’.
Tuvalu is the latest country and number nineteen to formalise diplomatic relations with Niue following New Zealand, China, Singapore, India, Cook Islands, Samoa, Thailand, Australia, Turkey, Cuba, Papua New Guinea, Kosovo, Japan, Italy, Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, and Peru.
