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Commonwealth Sees No Quick Solution to Fiji Crisis
The Fiji coup crisis would not be resolved quickly, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said Wednesday after meeting with Fiji's coup leader George Speight.
"I think this is still fairly protracted," McKinnon told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV's 7.30 Report from Suva.
"We -- myself and the representative of the United Nations secretary-general -- were really here to listen, to be able to convey messages about what our concerns were of our respective organizations, the fact that the illegal overthrow of the government is totally intolerant and shouldn't be accepted," he said.
"I'm just not convinced that this is going to be resolved very rapidly but it is certainly moving and I believe that a lot of people fully understand what we're saying," he said.
McKinnon and U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello Wednesday met Fiji's coup leader Speight for talks in the country's besieged parliament house.
But Speight remained defiant, refusing to release his hostages.
The envoys had also met briefly with Fiji's Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry who has been held captive for five days with 34 other hostages in the Fijian parliament.
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