SYDNEY: The Solomon Islands government has told the United States it will place a moratorium on navy vessels entering its ports, the United States embassy in Canberra said on Tuesday.

The notice follows an incident last Tuesday when a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, the Oliver Henry, was unable to enter Solomon Islands for a routine port call because the government did not respond to a request for it to refuel and provision.

"On Aug. 29, the United States received formal notification from the Government of Solomon Islands regarding a moratorium on all naval visits, pending updates in protocol procedures," the embassy said in a statement.

A spokesman for Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare earlier denied the reports of a moratorium.

"We have requested our partners to give us time to review, and put in place our new processes, before sending further requests for military vessels to enter the country," Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare said in a statement.

"These will universally apply to all visiting naval vessels," he said.

Sogavare added that he wanted to build national capacity to police the Pacific island nation's exclusive economic zones.

The Solomon Islands have had "unfortunate experiences of foreign naval vessels entering the country's waters during the course of the year without diplomatic clearance granted", the statement said, without naming the countries.

The suspension of naval ship visits will be lifted when a new process is in place.

In a speech on Tuesday afternoon to welcome the visiting U.S. hospital ship Mercy, Sogavare said the delay over the Oliver Henry was because information had not been sent to his office on time.

Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Oliver Henry was on patrol for illegal fishing in the South Pacific for a regional fisheries agency when it failed to obtain entry to refuel at Honiara, the Solomons' capital.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson on Monday said the "lack of diplomatic clearance for the Oliver Henry was regrettable", and the United States was pleased the Mercy had received clearance.

Separately, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said it was regrettable that "we've seen the Chinese try to bully and coerce nations throughout the Indo-Pacific to do their bidding and to serve what they believe their selfish national security interests are, rather than the broader interests of a free and open Indo-Pacific".