By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) -&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;island leaders will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a high-level U.S. delegation in&nbsp;Papua&nbsp;New Guinea on Monday, Fijian officials said,&nbsp;without&nbsp;U.S. President Joe&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;who cancelled his attendance at the talks.&nbsp;
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka confirmed the talks would&nbsp;go&nbsp;ahead&nbsp;after&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;pulled out of the visit to&nbsp;Papua&nbsp;New Guinea due to debt ceiling negotiations in Washington, a move seen by some as a blow to U.S. diplomacy in the region.
Biden&nbsp;had been expected to meet with 18 leaders from the region's main bloc, the&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;Islands Forum, and sign a&nbsp;defence&nbsp;cooperation agreement with PNG on Monday.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape is expected to announce details of the&nbsp;defence&nbsp;pact&nbsp;with the United States on Thursday, his office told Reuters.
Fiji said&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;leaders would hold discussions with Modi on regional cooperation. They would also meet later on Monday with a U.S. delegation for talks on "areas of cooperation and challenges critical to the region and the U.S."
"The meeting demonstrates the U.S. and&nbsp;Pacific&rsquo;s deep historical and people-to-people ties," Rabuka's office said in a statement, adding climate change, protecting maritime resources and economic growth were priorities.
The chairman of the&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;Islands Forum, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, said the regional meeting had originally been organised between the&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;countries and India, and his plans to travel to PNG were unchanged.
Brown told Reuters he welcomed "increased engagement by the larger countries in the&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;as an opportunity to discuss and articulate&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;challenges and opportunities at leader level".
Analysts said the cancellation of the&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;visit - the first by a sitting United States president to an independent&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;islands country - could damage U.S. credibility amid competition for influence with China in the strategically located region.
The PNG Post Courier wrote in an editorial on Thursday: "The Chinese are at least happy for now".
Biden&nbsp;will arrange another summit of&nbsp;Pacific&nbsp;island leaders this year after the disappointment caused by his cancellation of the PNG visit, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday.
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(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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Pacific meetings, defence pact, to go ahead in Papua without Biden