Australia and New Zealand will restore diplomatic ties with Fiji for the first time since 2009, officials said Monday after the chief diplomats of the three nations met in Sydney. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said Fijian ministers and senior public servants would now be allowed to visit Australia although travel bans on military personnel would remain. "Not all our concerns have been fulfilled," Carr said. "We're going to continue to watch developments in Fiji very carefully but we have acknowledged the positive progress that has been made," he was quoted as saying by DPA. Relations were cut off over the South Pacific nation's drift to military rule.
