The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it was "very nervous" when preparing for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) unprecedented trip to Europe to attend Pope John Paul II's funeral last Friday.
Larry Wang (王豫元), director-general of the ministry's Department of European Affairs, said in a routine press conference that in order to get Chen to the Vatican, the ministry managed to persuade 14 countries that have no diplomatic relations with Taipei to allow Chen's airplane to fly over their airspace.
The airspace problem was only one of the details needed to arrange Chen's visit to the Holy See, Wang said.
The ministry convened a meeting on the afternoon of April 3, just a few hours after the Pope died, to discuss the possibility of sending Chen to the Vatican, the nation's only diplomatic ally in Europe.
The meeting was called because Ambassador to the Vatican Tou Chou-seng (杜筑生) had telephoned the ministry to say Chen might be invited to attend the funeral.
China Airlines officials were called into the ministry the following day to discuss how to arrange Chen's flights.
"But at that time we still did not know when the Pope's funeral would be," Wang said.
Tuesday was a national holiday, Tomb-Sweeping Day, which caused some inconvenience for the ministry. At around 5pm on Wednesday, the Italian government, though under great pressure from China, agreed to issue Chen a visa.
Twenty-two hours later, Chen's plane took off for the Vatican.
Chen's visit was "quite successful," given that the ministry only had a few days to arrange the details of the trip, Wang said.
"We were very nervous during the process," he said.
The Vatican was "very friendly" in assisting diplomats arranging the visit, he said.
Wang said the Vatican's desire to establish official ties with China is no secret, but noted the Holy See's policy on China is unlikely to change under the next pontiff.
Reporting on other developments in Taiwan's relations with Europe, Wang said 23 members of the Latvian parliament wrote letters to their country's leaders last month urging them to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization (WHO).
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis and Foreign Minister Artis Pabrik received the letters, he said.
The deputy chairman of the Lithuanian parliament, Gintaras Steponavicius, recruited 88 fellow lawmakers last month to send a letter to the WHO urging it to accept Taiwan as an observer. The lawmakers also sent a letter to EU Commissioner of External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner last month asking the EU to be supportive of Taiwan's efforts to join the WHO, Wang said.
Support from two of the three Baltic states came after a Taiwanese delegation's visit early last month to lobby for their support for the WHO bid.
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