United States navy ship to visit Port Moresby

UNITED States Navy ship Sacagawea will be in Port Moresby for a week from Friday as part of exercise koa moana 16.2, a bilateral exchange between the US Marine Corps and the PNG Defence Force.
In addition to working with PNG, staff from the Sacagawea will conduct a security cooperation exercise in the Asia-Pacific region with several other nations, including Timor Leste, Tonga and Fiji.
Exercise koa moana, which is Hawaiian for “ocean warrior” is designed to improve operation and enhance military-to-military relations with partner nations.
The exercise will give the US service members exposure to different types of terrain and familiarity in the event of a natural disaster in the region.
Exercise koa moana provides a training opportunity to  build stronger relationships and promote capacity for training.
Additionally, a combined US Navy and US Coast Guard team will conduct operations to help combat transnational crime on the high seas in partner nations’ exclusive economic zones
The koa moana iteration will focus primarily on improving partnerships, community relation projects, utilising amphibious assets and engineering capabilities between the allied nations.
Follow-on iterations will feature the US Pacific Fleet forces such as the US Navy’s 7th Fleet and other units assigned to Marine Forces Pacific.
Through continued multilateral training, the partnership between the US and regional allies will be enhanced and strengthened to ensure the security and stability of the Asia-Pacific region.
Koa moana 16.2, like all multilateral training exercises, is dedicated to maintaining a flexible and effective force in readiness and is not connected to any current events.