Taiwanese students studying in Kuwait with scholarships from the local government said yesterday they were still unsure whether to leave the country amid fears of a US-led war on neighboring Iraq.
"I haven't decided yet. We are still adopting a wait-and-see attitude," said student Tsai I-li (
Tsai, senior student at the department of Arabic language and literature in National Chengchi University, is in Kuwait for a one-year exchange program paid for by the Kuwaiti government.
"The Kuwaiti government paid for our studies, so we decided to wait for a little big longer as this scholarship is hard to come by," Tsai said.
Tsai said since she reached Kuwait last September to study in the oil-rich Persian Gulf state, she has heard non-stop debate over Iraq's disarmament issue.
"They were fighting over the issue every month. But everything is rather quiet here, and everyone carries on with his or her routine, although the outside world seems rather anxious about the situation here," she said.
Wei Hsiou-jiun (
"It's the press that has made a big fuss about it," Wei said in a phone interview. "Unless we are forced to evacuate, we won't return to Taiwan. Otherwise our studies here will come to a halt."
Wei has just graduated from the National Chengchi University last fall and is currently pursuing her Arabic-language studies in Kuwait with the same scholarship as Tsai.
Both Tsai and Wei said they made their decision to stay on with their studies in Kuwait -- at least for the time being -- after close consultations with their families in Taiwan.
But Wei said a student at her department had decided to give up her scholarship and return to Taiwan for good in January because of the situation in the Gulf.
"Her parents were quite worried about her, so she went back to Taiwan and will not come back," Wei said.
Tsai said the Kuwaiti government has maintained the scholarship scheme in Taiwan for the past 10 years.
Ma Chou-shien (馬超賢), spokesman for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Saudi Arabia, said the country's foreign ministry has agreed to open the door to Kuwait-based Taiwanese should they decide to evacuate if a war in Iraq spills over into Kuwait.
A diplomat at the Taipei Commercial Representative Office in Kuwait said all evacuation measures have been taken into account in the office's contingency plan.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, out of the 3,000 Taiwanese citizens based in the Gulf region, 2,500 are in Saudi Arabia.
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