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MOFA delivers recommendation on APEC envoy

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kau (高英茂) said yesterday that the ministry has recommended a candidate to replace Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to attend the APEC leaders' summit as President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) envoy.

It is up to the Presidential Office to make the final decision. Kao said, refusing to say who the candidate was.

Chen named Wang as his envoy to this month's APEC meeting in Busan, South Korea, but South Korea objected to the decision.

Kao said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is determined that Taiwan will have a presence at the meeting.

"We are in a hurry in dealing with the matter and I believe the Presidential Office also hopes to solve the problem as soon as possible," he said.

An official announcement is expected from Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General James Huang (黃志芳) a few days before the summit, which is scheduled for Nov. 18 and Nov. 19.

Meanwhile, a ministry official said throughout the lobbying efforts for Wang, MOFA had kept close contact with the US government, which did not oppose Wang's representation. The main obstacle came from the South Korean government, the official said.

Victor Chin (秦日新), director general of the ministry's Department of North American Affairs told a press briefing yesterday that as a major economy in the APEC forum, the US has always been supportive of Taiwan's participation.

"We have been in frequent contact with the US over the past few weeks and had long ago told it of our choice of representative, and it said it did not oppose Wang's attending the APEC meeting," Chin said.

Additional reporting by Chiu Yu-tzu
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