Turkey is to become the 133th country or region to grant Taiwan visa facilitation after agreeing to include Taiwan in its e-visa system on May 15, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Ko (柯森耀) said yesterday.
Reciprocally, the Taiwanese government will extend landing visa privileges to Turkish citizens, effective on the same date, Ko told a news conference.
The government welcomed the visa facilities and said it believed that the e-visa system would facilitate people-to-people exchanges between the two countries and enhance bilateral relations in areas of trade and commerce, tourism, academia and culture, Ko said.
Ko said the agreement on the facilitation of the issuance of visas saw the results of efforts by both sides over the years come to fruition.
Despite the progress, the ministry yesterday had few details to offer as to how it has proceeded with its long-stated goal to open a representative office in Istanbul, one of Turkey’s biggest cities, reportedly hampered by intervention from China.
David Wang (王建業), director of the ministry’s Department of West Asian and African Affairs, said the ministry has been taking one step at a time developing bilateral relations in a steady manner.
Under Turkey’s e-visa system, Republic of China passport holders can apply for a single-entry visa for a stay of up to 30 days at a cost of US$20.
The current application fee for a single-entry visa to Turkey is NT$1,800 (US$61) and NT$6,000 for a multiple-entry visa.
To use the e-visa system, a visitor is required to hold a passport that is valid for at least six months.
People traveling on e-visas to Turkey can enter the country via any of its three main international airports, Esenboga International Airport in Ankara, and Ataturk International Airport and Sabina Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul, the ministry said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching