Foreign Minister Winston Peters says it’s still a moot point as to whether Iran was responsible for planting mines on
two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
“The more intelligence we see, the more we'll be able to make up our mind, but we're not going to rush to judgement just
yet.”
Winston Peters also told Q+A, that the US has received our Pacific reset “seriously well” and is keen to get more
involved in the region.
“There's been a move to ensure there's a far bigger contribution by the US in the Pacific, and we're speaking directly
to the administration now on a range of projects where we want to get them involved.
Well, they've already stepped up, for example, with Japan and New Zealand and Australia to electrify 70% of the
population's services of PNG. That's massive.”
When asked whether Samoa’s new proposed $500m port which will have Chinese backing if the final proposal is accepted, is
excess to their commercial requirements, Mr Peters told Jack Tame, “I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Don't
forget, right now it's an exploratory grant to see whether it's feasible. And a $500 million port in Samoa – it's very
difficult to see how it is feasible, and the Japanese have already been through that assessment, so let's see what we're
dealing with.”
Please find the transcript attached and you can watch the full interview here.
Q+A, 9:30pm Mondays on TVNZ 1 and one hour later on TVNZ 1 + 1.
Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz
Thanks to the support from NZ On Air.