Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes has reassured Taiwan that his country will continue to maintain cordial and stable diplomatic relations with Taiwan after he shared a stage with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at an international event, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Cartes attended an event organized by the embassy of the Republic of China to Paraguay in Asuncion on Friday and told Ambassador Jose Maria Liu (劉德立) that the diplomatic relationship between the two countries would remain the same, said an official at the ministry, who wished to remain anonymous.
In response to media inquiries, the ministry yesterday confirmed that Cartes had attended the summit between China and presidents of 11 countries belonging to the Union of South American Nations, known as UNASUR, on Wednesday last week in Brasilia, Brazil, where he met with Xi.
The ministry’s understanding was that Cartes was at the summit because Paraguay is a member of UNASUR and that he left early because he had other engagements back in Paraguay, ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said.
Kao said that the ministry was assured that there was no bilateral meeting between Cartes and Xi when they were both at the summit.
The anonymous official said that Cartes was present at the opening reception of the event in Asuncion held to showcase achievements of bilateral cooperative projects and he told Liu that his conversation with Xi did not go beyond ordinary greetings.
After attending the sixth summit of BRICs on July 15 in Fortaleza, Brazil, and the meeting with UNASUR on Wednesday, Xi had a meeting with leaders of the “Quartet” members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States — Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador and Antigua and Barbuda — on Thursday last week.
Xi concluded his week-long trip to Latin America yesterday after visiting Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba.
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