FIJI and Pacific defence leaders are strengthening intelligence-sharing ties with Chile to intercept illicit drug shipments moving across the ocean from South America, Defence Minister Pio Tikoduadua confirmed.
Speaking after the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting in Nadi on Thursday, Mr Tikoduadua emphasised that curbing South American drug routes required proactive monitoring along the eastern Pacific corridor.
Mr Tikoduadua said joint information networks would allow regional authorities to detect emerging trafficking developments early.
“We are sharing information that would allow us to be able to anticipate things, particularly any development from around the eastern side of South Pacific in the Americas.
“Simple examples like blue bottles, our capacity to be able to acquire information readily and in advance.”
Mr Tikoduadua said the bilateral focus forms part of a broader regional push to deploy military capabilities against transnational crime, cyber threats, and border vulnerabilities.
“That has been at the very centre of our discussion.
“Transnational organised crime, the existential threat that affects all of us, including climate change, and amongst them drugs as well, and cybercrime, and how we use military capability to be able to shape that for us and keep us safer.”
To secure exposed maritime zones, Mr Tikoduadua highlighted frameworks such as the Pacific Response Group alongside external partnerships.
“Each country looks at their own capability that they have already, and look out to the other member states to be able to complement those, including the Philippines.”
