Confirming reports that David Lee (李大維), the nation's top representative to the US, had been fingerprinted and photographed by airport security officials upon arriving in Washington, foreign affairs authorities yesterday relayed that the US Department of State had already expressed its apologies over the incident.
"According to agreements forged after diplomatic ties [between Taiwan and the US] had been severed, Lee should have been immune to the security checks," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"However, the US Department of State has already offered its apologies. In addition, [Acting Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan] William Brown, who was present at the time, already apologized to Lee," Shih said.
However, Shih refrained from revealing how the apology had been issued or by whom, stating only that it had been relayed to Lee by a "high-ranking official" of the US Department of State.
According to Shih, Brown had attempted to exempt Lee from the security measures while at the airport but had failed to persuade security officials to relent. While Lee had arrived at the Dulles International Airport on July 23, no mention of the incident had been made until the China Times's report yesterday.
Despite media reports calling the incident a serious breach of diplomatic protocol, Shih said that the ministry believed the incident to be nothing more than a mere administrative blunder.
Shih pointed to the recent implementation of US-VISIT, a national security program geared towards countering terrorism that requires most foreign visitors traveling to the US on a visa to have their two index fingers scanned and a digital photograph taken to verify their identity at the port of entry. The program was launched in January at select air and sea ports of entry. The fingerprints and photographs taken upon entry are checked against Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records of individuals involved in terrorism or other crimes.
"Lee is not the first Taiwanese diplomat posted in the United States to be fingerprinted. Taipei has previously protested to Washington about this and has been assured that the matter will be addressed," Shih said.
Shih went one step further to say that "US [officials] have promised this won't happen again."
However, Shih admitted that agreements on diplomatic privileges and immunity should have exempted Lee from being fingerprinted and photographed at the security checkpoint in Washington.
The Agreement on Privileges, Exemptions and Immunities signed on Oct 2, 1980 by the American Institute in Taiwan and the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, now known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, grants a number of traditional diplomatic privileges and immunities to both US and Taiwanese representatives.
The E-1 type visa, also referred to as the "Treaty Trader" visa, issued to Lee and other Taiwanese officials does not necessarily grant him diplomatic immunity from security checks.
E-type visas are generally issued to nationals of countries that have trade treaties in effect with the US.
However, the E-type visa is not listed for exemption from US-VISIT security checks on the Department of Homeland Security's official Web site.
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