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Taiwan protests exclusion

Taiwan has lodged a protest with authorities in Peru, the host country of the 2008 APEC forum, over the country's exclusion from an informal meeting of APEC foreign ministers, Taiwanese officials said on Thursday.

The meeting, which took place on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual APEC ministerial meeting held in Lima, focused on issues concerning the global financial crisis. The foreign ministers of all APEC members were invited to attend, except for Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Taiwanese delegates had requested that Taiwan be represented at the meeting, but the request was rejected by the organizer on the grounds that Taiwa's APEC delegation did not include the country's minister of foreign affairs.

Taiwan later submitted an official letter of protest to the host country, as it has done in previous years when the same thing has happened, ministry officials said.

Since the terrorist attack on New York's Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, APEC foreign ministers have used the annual APEC meet to discuss major regional issues. Although the informal meeting does not take place every year, Taiwan and Hong Kong have always been excluded.

Meanwhile, Lien Chan (連戰), Taiwan's presidential envoy to the summit, arrived in Lima on Thursday in preparation for the leaders' meeting over the weekend. He was scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at 10:45am yesterday.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
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