HONIARA (Dispatches) -- Foreign navy ships will not be allowed to enter ports on the Solomon Islands as the Pacific Island is planning to place a moratorium on them, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said on Tuesday.
The prime minister made the announcement hours after the U.S. embassy in Canberra, Australia said it had been informed U.S. Navy ships would be temporarily barred from docking.
“We have requested our partners to give us time to review and put in place our new processes before sending further requests for military vessels to enter the country,” Sogavare said.
Relations between Honiara and Washington have been tense ever since the Solomon Islands reached a security agreement with China earlier this year.
“On August 29, the United States received formal notification from the Government of Solomon Islands regarding a moratorium on all naval visits, pending updates in protocol procedures,” the embassy said in a statement.
“We will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
Fear over China’s expanding influence in the Pacific region has led the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to urge Sogavare to not sign the pact.
The draft deal, revealed in a leak in March, set out terms including the possibility of China sending armed forces to the islands to protect its investments, as well as docking its warships.
The proximity of the Solomon Islands to the U.S. territory on the Pacific Island of Guam has sparked particular concern.
“The broad nature of the security agreement leaves open the door for the deployment of PRC [People’s Republic of China] military forces to the Solomon Islands,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in April.
A U.S. Coast Guard vessel that was patrolling for illegal fishing in the region was unable to make a routine port call at Honiara last week due to a failure from the island nation to respond to a request for refueling and provisions.
Sogavare said that he wanted to build up the country’s own naval capacity, citing the “unfortunate experiences of foreign naval vessels entering the country’s waters during the course of the year without diplomatic clearance granted.”
The Pacific Island nation, with its 700,000-strong population, was hit by violent riots in November last year in which several people died. Sogavare blamed the unrest on unnamed foreign countries that were supposedly angered by the country cutting off relations with Taiwan in 2019.