President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday broke his silence and joined international condemnation of North Korea, declaring his administration willing to work with the international community to maintain regional peace.
Ma said Taiwan was highly concerned about recent tension on the Korean Peninsula.
“We condemn any form of violence or provocation undermining regional peace,” he said. “We support the efforts of the Republic of Korea, United States of America, Japan and other countries to lower tension on the Korean Peninsula.”
Noting the efforts of the UN to maintain stability in the region, Ma said Taiwan was willing to follow whatever measures the international community adopted to prevent tension from escalating.
Ma made the remarks in an interview with al-Jazeera English, an Arabic-language news network.
It was the first time the president has commented on the matter since South Korea accused North Korea of torpedoing a warship in March.
In their joint stance against North Korea, the US and Japan have both condemned Pyongyang.
On May 20, the Ma government responded to the situation in a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which called for restraint. It was not until May 25, responding to reporters’ questions, that Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said that the North deserved condemnation if it was proved to have been behind the incident.
That response was questioned by Shirley Kan, a specialist in National Security Policy with the Congressional Research Service, the public policy research arm of the US Congress.
Kan was quoted by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) yesterday as saying that she was confused as to why the ministry’s statement was almost indistinguishable from the position taken by Beijing.
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