Former Nicaraguan ambassador to Taiwan Mirna Rivera twice refused to meet with Taiwanese officials before the Central American nation cut diplomatic ties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that all Taiwanese officials are to exit Nicaragua by tomorrow.
Since Nicaragua switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing on Dec. 9, some commentators have accused Taipei of failing to comprehend what was about to happen.
However, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news briefing in Taipei that the ministry had understood related information.
Photo: Weng Yu-huang, Taipei Times
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yui (俞大?) on Dec. 3 summoned Rivera and expressed the nation’s serious concerns about bilateral ties, she said.
The ministry summoned Rivera two more times, but she refused to meet based on some pretext, she added.
In 2018, Rivera, 25, graduated from Ming Chuan University in Taipei on a foreign student scholarship from the ministry. She served as a counselor at Nicaragua’s permanent mission to the UN before becoming Nicaragua’s ambassador to Taiwan in October last year.
Ou said that the ministry’s preparations for closing the embassy in Managua are nearly complete.
Former ambassador to Nicaragua Ivan Lee (李岳融) has returned to Taiwan, while other embassy officials and technical mission personnel are to leave Nicaragua by tomorrow, she added.
Lee had only last month assumed his role in Nicaragua.
After severing diplomatic ties, countries customarily take at least one month to recall personnel, a diplomatic source said.
Given two weeks’ notice, Taiwan had little time to close the embassy and the technical mission, and for staff to depart, the source told the Central News Agency.
Based on the principle of reciprocity, Taipei gave the staff of the Nicaraguan embassy in Taiwan the same amount of time to exit the country, Ou said.
At the embassy in Managua, 52 people — Taiwanese staff members and their families — are readying to leave Nicaragua.
More information about the disposal of the embassy building, which is owned by the ministry, would be shared after it happens and officials have returned home, Ou said.
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, Taiwan has lost eight diplomatic allies.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and