Bertie Ahern Meets New Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has met with the new Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Mr James Marape. He had travelled directly from New York where he had briefed the United Nations Secretary-General earlier this week on developments in the Bougainville Peace Process. The Prime Minister and Mr Ahern discussed several key priorities, the first of which is the Bougainville referendum scheduled for later this year. Papua New Guinea, with a population of 9.8million people, has been engaged in a peace process with Bougainville since 2001 following a conflict that took the lives of over 20,000 people.
Mr Ahern indicated that there was keen interest on behalf of the United Nations as well as other countries in the region including Australia and New Zealand, to see that the process and the referendum succeeded in finally determining, a better future for the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville following the conflict in the past.

This week Mr Ahern will travel to various parts of the island of Bougainville where he will meet groups and organisations including, women’s organisations, youth organisations, farming groups along with other civil society actors who are active in the process.