New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs is defending his Government's decision to expel Fiji's acting High Commissioner to New Zealand.
The decision to declare Kuliniasi Seru Savou persona non grata and order him to leave is in retaliation for the expulsion of New Zealand's Todd Cleaver and an Australian senior diplomat from Fiji.
Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully, says the tit for tat response is following diplomatic protocol.
"That's in the nature of this sort of action and if you take a unilateral action against another post, there has been a tradition of some sort of reaction of this sort and it draws attention to the fact that the basis on which the Fiji administration is certain that Mr Cleaver should leave the country is quite unfounded."
New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully.
