Fifteen Taiwanese diplomats, staff at technical missions and family members are to depart Nauru after it on Monday cut official diplomatic ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said yesterday.
Among the 15 are three conscripts doing their alternative military service in the diplomatic corps, two interns and four official technical mission members, Liu said.
The personnel from the technical mission and the conscripts would be reassigned to other countries, while the two interns are to return to Taiwan after concluding their internship, he said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Liu was responding to media queries during a news briefing about when the nation’s embassy in Nauru would be officially closed.
It is customary for countries to take about three months to recall their personnel following the severance of diplomatic relations, Liu said.
Taipei’s ongoing talks with Nauru over the closure of the two countries’ respective embassies are going smoothly, as the Nauru side did not make “unreasonable demands,” he said.
Moreover, the government does not own any real estate in the Pacific island nation, as its embassy and dormitories were all rented, he added.
The ministry would sell the embassy’s vehicles and other assets, or transport them to nearby embassies, he said.
There are no Taiwanese emigrants or businesspeople in Nauru, Liu said.
Questions over whether Nauru has set too tight a deadline for the departure of embassy and technical mission staff, or whether Taiwan needed to protect its property, were raised after challenges arose when Nicaragua cut ties with Taiwan in December 2021.
Nicaragua’s government gave Taiwan’s embassy and technical mission an extremely tight two-week deadline to leave the country after ties were severed on Dec. 10.
Taiwan said that the request did not conform to global practices.
Nicaragua also forcibly confiscated the country’s former embassy there.
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