Taiwan thanked eight of its formal diplomatic allies for supporting its aspirations to participate in the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) during the agency’s annual meeting in Morocco late last month.
Senior officials from eight diplomatic allies — the Marshall Islands, Belize, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guatemala, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Paraguay and Eswatini — spoke up on Taiwan’s behalf at Interpol’s General Assembly from Nov. 24 to 27 or sent letters to Interpol, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Tuesday.
Despite their appeals, Taiwan was still left out of the proceedings, as has been the case since the 1980s.
Photo: EPA
The ministry delayed publicly thanking the allies until now, as the assembly, which Taiwanese representatives could not attend, was held in a closed-door format, and it needed time to collect information on their respective addresses, the ministry said.
It eventually posted a video clip of representatives of six allies who spoke up for Taiwan’s inclusion during last month’s assembly.
In the two-minute-clip, Paraguayan Vice Minister of Internal Security Oscar Pereira, Saint Kitts and Nevis Police Commissioner James Sutton and Eswatini National Police Commissioner Manoma Vusi Masango said they backed Taiwan’s participation in the organization.
Pereira said Paraguay understood that “the best form of combating all kinds of crimes, domestic and transnational, is to combine forces and reinforce cooperative links.”
“In this sense, the Republic of Paraguay backs Taiwan’s request to be incorporated into the Interpol system,” he said.
Sutton praised Taiwan for demonstrating “professionalism, advanced investigative capabilities and a strong commitment to international security.”
“Their participation would make the global law enforcement network stronger, more complete and more effective,” he said.
Masango said Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol has meant that it has no access to Interpol’s “critical databases due to political reasons, a gap that undermines global security.”
Others who spoke in the clip were Saint Lucian Minister of Home Affairs, Crime Prevention and Persons with Disabilities Jeremiah Norbert, Belizean Deputy Police Commissioner Bartholomew Jones, and Marshallese Minister of Justice Wisely Zackhras.
Taiwan was a member of Interpol from 1964 until 1984, when the organization terminated its membership to welcome the People’s Republic of China.
“As China is a member of Interpol, Interpol cannot grant Taiwan observer status in the General Assembly,” the Interpol General Secretariat said.
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