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The prime minister of Solomon Islands has blamed foreign powers after rioting in the Pacific country prompted Australia to send security assistance.

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PM Manasseh Sogavare, in comments to the ABC, rejected criticism of the nation’s 2019 decision to end diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favour of Beijing, a move seen contributing to the national crisis.

Unrest in the country and a request for help prompted an Australian deployment of federal police personnel yesterday, a DFAT presence and ADF personnel to be sent today.

Sogavare said the crisis “is influenced and encouraged by other powers”.

Also speaking to the ABC in a separate interview, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said Australia had acted on a request from the Solomon Islands government.

There’s currently 23 members of the Australian Federal Police. And that includes officers from the tactical response teams that we have here in Australia. So they actually were deployed pretty much immediately yesterday and have landed on the Solomon Islands. There’s also representatives from DFAT there. There will be more Australian Federal Police members deployed today – up to another 50 will be deployed. And then an additional 40 ADF personnel will be deployed from Townsville today.

Our role is to assist the Solomon Islands police force to restore law and public order as soon as we possibly can do that. So our role is very clear. We’re there as a result of a direct approach from the Solomon Islands government in accordance with the treaty that we entered into with them in 2017. So, we’re there to support the police force, so it is a policing matter. We will be there to provide support to protect critical infrastructure, so that’s ports, airports in particular. And we will do all that we can to work with the police force to restore that law and public order.

Ms Andrews said the AFP and defence force personnel would be armed with both lethal and non-lethal weapons, but emphasised it was a policing matter, not a military matter.

With Rod McGuirk