Cooks-NZ relations entering new era says Marurai

The Cook Islands is entering a new era of relations with New Zealand, the Prime Minister Jim Marurai has described. On the eve of the inaugural visit to Rarotonga by Te Arikinui King Tuheitia and following Marurai’s trip to the New Zealand capital, the Prime Minister says the special bond between the two countries is gaining new strength at the highest levels in the realms of both government politics and leadership in traditional culture.
Marurai visited Wellington this week to conduct a select number of calls in conjunction with a special invitation to appear at a function for Otago University Pacific Alumni. The meetings with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully have advanced a new mechanism of dialogue between the two governments – the Joint Ministerial Forum (JMF) – which is likely to take place this December. The Prime Minister’s talks were very cordial and assuring of the warm ties with the NZ leadership. The JMF is now poised to provide valued and more direct input from Ministers in a face-to-face forum with counterparts, on a wide range of government relations and issues of mutual interest.
In playing host this coming week to King Tuheitia, the Prime Minister says our familial and cultural ties with Aotearoa will be significantly uplifted with renewed appreciation and respect for our shared history of evolvement as one people. The King was invited by the Prime Minister to be a special guest of the Government and people of the Cook Islands during the Maeva Nui. His visit sets us on a new path of relations and will continue to build on the already strong links, which we have enjoyed and established for many years, the Prime Minister said.