Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) chair and Prime Minister of Cook Islands, Mark Stephen Brown, speaks during the Korea-Pacific Islands Summit at the former presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 29, 2023.
Ahn Young-joon/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, chairman of the Pacific Islands bloc, said that science supported Japan's decision to pump treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, but that the region may not agree on the "complex" issue.
Not all Pacific leaders had the same position and the Pacific Islands Forum may not reach a collective position, he said.
The United States conducted nuclear tests in the Pacific Islands in the 1940s and 1950s, and France between 1966 and 1996.
A Pacific Nuclear Free Zone was established in 1985 under a treaty that prevents the dumping of radioactive materials.
Persons:
Mark Stephen Brown, Ahn Young, Mark Brown, Brown, Sitiveni Rabuka, Kirsty Needham, Gerry Doyle
Organizations:
Islands, Pacific Islands, presidential Blue House, Rights, Cook Islands, International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Pacific, United, Fijian, Melanesian Spearhead Group, Thomson
Locations:
Cook Islands, Korea, Seoul, South Korea, Japan, China, Cook, United States, France, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands