Murray McCully

Wellington, Aug 9 NZPA - The New Zealand Government is waiting to see if Fiji fulfils a threat to pull out of regional trade talks.

Agence France Presse reported the Fiji government under coup leader Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama had threatened to quit two key regional trade agreements after being shut out of negotiations at this week's Pacific Islands Forum summit in Australia.

The forum, which suspended Fiji in March for reneging on a promise to restore democracy, announced that negotiations on closer economic relations, known as Pacer-plus, will go ahead without Fiji but that it will be briefed later.

However, Fiji maintains its role in Pacer-plus and the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (Picta) are separate to its place at the forum table.

The unsigned statement said the "deliberate disregard for Fiji's rights as state parties to both Picta and Pacer has regrettably forced us to consider withdrawing completely from these arrangements."

Foreign Minister Murray McCully said Fiji was in the original Pacer and Picta agreements.

"It was over to leaders to decide how they wanted to handle the Pacer-plus discussions. They made their decisions about that last week, Fiji's reacted adversely to that decision."

He said the Government would wait and see what Fiji decided before commenting.