Representatives from the Presidential Office and the People First Party (PFP) agreed yesterday to delay a Feb. 28 summit between President Chen Shui-bian (
Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun met with PFP Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng (
PHOTO: CNA
Although it was originally expected that Chen and Soong would meet on or before Feb. 28, Yu and Chin announced in a joint press conference after their meeting that, while the Chen-Soong summit would a certainty, it was unlikely that the meeting would take place before the end of the month.
After the meeting with Yu, Chin said only that the political climate was unsuitable for a Chen-Soong meeting at the moment, because of the focus being placed on the unfolding UMC scandal.
PFP caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (
In contrast however, Yu said yesterday that the UMC affair would have no effect on the anticipated meeting between Chen and Soong.
"The judicial system is independent of the administration. Politics should stick to politics, industry to industry and justice to justice," Yu said yesterday, adding that it need not impact the timing of the Chen-Soong meet.
However, during the meeting yesterday, both Yu and Chin agreed that cross-strait peace, defense and security and ethnic reconciliation would be the three main issues on the agenda for the planned meeting between Chen and Soong.
When questioned whether both he and Chin had, during their one and a half hour meeting, struck any consensus with regard to the three topics, Yu said that they reached the decision about the topics without going into details of their content.
"After all, that is the very reason that we are working on having the Chen-Soong meeting," Yu said. "If there was already a consensuses on these [three topics,] then there would be no need for the Chen-Soong meeting."
Saying that aides would deliberate on these topics to determine what content would be discussed during the Chen-Soong meeting, Yu added that "similarities could be sought amid the differences, and hence the highest common denominator could be reached" on the issues.
For his part, Chin said it was the hope that when Chen and Soong met and discussed the issues, "a consensus could be reached that best represents the public's views, and that issues concerning national identity and otehr relevant matters could be further clarified."
As far as a format for the planned Chen-Soong summit is concerned, Yu said the style of which would be held in a similar manner as that of the meeting between the two four years ago.
With that said, Yu noted that the first summit between Chen and Soong four years ago was not as unsuccessful as some other otherwise thought.
"If it weren't for the first Chen-Soong meeting in 2000, then there would be no establishment of the Economic Development Advisory Conference (
To ensure the openness of the meeting between between Chen and Soong, Chin added that he and Yu, as well as Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General James Huang (
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