Taiwan will soon reopen its representative office in Tripoli after holding talks with officials from Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), Hsu Mien-sheng (徐勉生) director-general of the Department of African Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Ministry officials recently concluded a month-long mission in Libya to discuss the reopening of the Commercial Office of the Republic of China in Tripoli, the country’s only overseas mission in northern Africa, Hsu said.
During the visit, Taiwanese officials held talks with officials of the interim government that ranged from the treatment to be conferred by Tripoli to the representative office to the expectations of both sides as to what role the office should play after it resumes operations, Hsu said.
It was the first time that Taipei made a formal request to Tripoli to reopen the office, which was closed on Feb. 21 last year amid the political turmoil surrounding the ousting of late Libyan leader Muammar -Qaddafi, he said.
“Our request received a warm welcome. If things go well, it can be reopened soon,” Hsu added.
Since Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Tripoli, it was not able to return to the country as promptly as other countries after the political situation stabilized because it needed approval from the interim government, he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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