French authorities have given permission for evacuation flights to take off and land in Noumea.
Already a subscriber?The first Australians have been evacuated from New Caledonia after two air force flights managed to land at Noumea’s reopened airport on Tuesday, with further airlifts planned.
The RAAF has been on standby since the weekend to evacuate Australians, amid diplomatic sensitivities over the optics of foreign military aircraft landing and taking off from the French territory, which is less than 1500 kilometres from the Australian mainland.Foreign Minister Penny Wong and her New Zealand counterpart Winston Peters had a three-way phone hook-up with French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné on Monday hammering out arrangements for the flights.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles indicated Australian Federal Police deployment to Solomon Islands could become an ongoing commitment following talks with the Pacific nation’s new prime minister.
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