KEY POINTS:
The muscle-flexing exercise by Fiji's military last night cast doubt on what was achieved at talks in Wellington.
A rare face-to-face meeting between outspoken Commodore Frank Bainimarama and Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase at Government House yesterday lasted two hours and was said to have been broadly positive.
But while the men are understood to have agreed to a timetable to try to resolve their differences, details were scarce.
There was no guarantee Fiji's fourth coup in 20 years would be averted.
As the men flew home on separate planes late yesterday, the military that Commodore Bainimarama leads raised eyebrows by announcing it would conduct an overnight exercise in Suva as a precaution against "foreign intervention".
Helen Clark said she thought the Wellington talks had gone well, but she remained cautious about raising expectations too far.
"It all depends on what they do when they go home," she told the Herald last night. The talks themselves were successful enough."
Helen Clark told TV One's Close Up programme she believed Mr Qarase and Commodore Bainimarama had understood each other's position.
Her understanding was "they did get down to brass tacks".
"But all that is going to hang on what happens when they return to Fiji.
"From the point of view of the talks in Wellington it was the first time they'd spoken for many, many, many months. They did speak together for more than two hours and it was felt that some progress had been made.
"But for progress to continue to be made people would have to go home in the same spirit."
The Government had felt it was an achievement to get the two men, both "patriotic Fijians" in the same room but she did not want to overbuild expectations.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters - who attended the meeting - said it covered a number of serious issues and New Zealand was available to give further help if needed.
New Zealand might assist to provide an independent legal view on issues, he said.
Mr Peters also did not rule out travelling to Fiji himself at some point if needed.
Asked what he thought the risk of a coup was, Mr Peters said, "I'm an optimist - I think that New Zealand's role is to do its best to see whether we can work our way through this extraordinarily dangerous proposition."
He later said "we were facing a crisis, possibly still are".
His office cautioned against reading too much into the latest military exercise in Suva.
Commodore Bainimarama arrived about half an hour late for his meeting with the Fijian Prime Minister yesterday, and avoided waiting media at both Wellington and Auckland airports.
Fiji's Police Commissioner, Andrew Hughes, who was a surprise passenger on the New Zealand Air Force plane which carried Mr Qarase to Wellington on Tuesday night, was last night understood to have flown to Australia rather than back to Fiji.
Sources said Mr Hughes had been concerned by threats made against him in Fiji.
