Wed, Jun 10, 2009 page3

• Swine flu scuppered Ortega meet: representative

  ‘CONFIDENT’ An envoy said Nicaragua ‘believed that Taiwan would understand the reason behind the postponement’ of a June 1 meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou

  • By Jenny W. Hsu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega may visit Taiwan next year, ambassador to Taiwan William Tapia said yesterday, adding that Nicaragua’s confirmation of its first swine flu case was the reason a meeting between Ortega and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was delayed and eventually canceled.

  Tapia said in an interview with the Taipei Times that his president felt “confident” of the strength of Taiwan’s friendship when he asked to postpone the meeting with Ma so he could attend to affairs at home.

  Ma and first lady Chow Mei-­ching (周美青) were in Latin America on a 10-day tour last month to attend the inauguration of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes as well as visiting Taiwan’s allies ­Belize and Guatemala.

  Ma and Ortega were scheduled to hold an informal meeting on June 1 in San Salvador, but Ortega had to postpone the meeting twice to deal with important affairs at home, Tapia said.

  Saying that Nicaragua reported its first confirmed case of the A(H1N1) virus right before Ortega’s plane departed for San Salvador for the inauguration, Tapia said: “Because he cares deeply about the welfare of his people, he stayed in Nicaragua to deal with the [matter]. He was even late for the ceremony.”

  The informal meeting between Ma and Ortega was scheduled to take place at 4:30pm, but Ortega’s people asked to postpone the meeting to 6:30pm to give the Nicaraguan president two hours to conduct domestic affairs, Tapia said, adding that Ortega’s delegation proposed to delay the meeting once again to “sometime before 9pm” when Nicaragua’s health ministry confirmed a second case of swine flu shortly before 6:30pm.

  Ma then decided to scrap the meeting, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊), who said that Ma had suggested holding off the meeting until later this month when he is scheduled to visit Nicaragua on a state visit on his way to attend the inauguration of Panamanian president-elect Ricardo Martinelli.

  “President Ortega felt very confident with Taiwan’s friendship and believed that Taiwan would understand the reason behind the postponement,” Tapia said, adding Ortega took no offense when Taiwan called off the meeting.

  Ortega, who did not come to Ma’s inauguration in May last year, could be expected to visit Taiwan sometime next year, he added.

  Tapia dismissed speculation that cancelation of the meeting indicated shaky ties between the two countries, saying Ortega had on a number of occasions publicly touted the alliance and called Taiwan one of Nicaragua’s “three true friends” along with Venezuela and Russia.

  The Nicaraguan government switched diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing in 1985 only to re-establish ties with Taipei in 1990 after former president Violeta Chamorro took office.

  While campaigning for the 2006 presidential election, Ortega said he would resume ties with Beijing if elected. After he won, however, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) attended his inauguration in January 2007 and Ortega promised that Nicaragua would maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
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