Referendum consultations to start after talks

THE consultations on the outcome of the Bougainville referendum is to proceed after talks in Port Moresby between Prime Minister James Marape and Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama.
They signed a joint communique signalling “our intention to immediately commence the joint consultations as is required by the Constitution and the Bougainville Peace Agreement over the outcome of the Bougainville referendum”.
Marape said the referendum outcome would be subject to ratification by Parliament.
“The joint communique builds on the tremendous achievements of both governments and establishes the following facts and principles of the Bougainville peace process:

THAT the Bougainville Peace Agreement provides for a political right to Bougainvilleans to a referendum among Bougainvilleans on the future political status of Bougainville;
THAT the Government had guaranteed that political right through the Constitution;
THAT the constitutional guarantee for the referendum under the Constitution depended on the fulfilment by the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) of conditions relating to weapons disposal and good governance, of which the ABG satisfactorily met;
THAT the choice for separate independence was guaranteed under the Constitution as one of a number of possible choices available to Bougainvilleans in the referendum;
THAT both Governments had agreed to the definition of independence before the conduct of the referendum;
THAT the referendum was conducted by an impartial Bougainville Referendum Commission;
THAT the referendum held in November and December 2019 and witnessed by international observers was free and fair;
THAT 181,067 Bougainvilleans voted in the referendum, and out of that, 97.7 per cent chose independence; and,
That the report of the Bougainville Referendum Commission was tabled in Parliament and the Autonomous Bougainville Government House of Representatives and endorsed.