The government is closely watching the incoming center-left Lithuania coalition government and hopes cordial relations with Vilnius would continue, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said on Tuesday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of European Affairs Director-General Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) made the remarks when asked at a weekly news briefing about Taiwan’s interactions with the Lithuania’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) and other opposition parties in the Baltic state.
The SDP won 52 out of the 141 parliamentary seats in Lithuania’s Oct. 13-27 elections, with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte’s center-right Homeland Union finishing a distant second with only 28 seats.
Photo: CNA
The SDP’s Gintautas Paluckas led the party in this year’s elections and would likely serve as prime minister at the head of a center-left coalition in the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament.
Following the elections, Paluckas told Lithuanian media that he wished to restore full diplomatic relations with China, repairing a rift caused by the inclusion of “Taiwanese” in the name of Taiwan’s representative office in Vilnius.
An English-language Lithuanian National Radio and Television report on Thursday last week quoted Paluckas as saying that the name of the representative office, which opened in Vilnius on Nov. 18, 2021, had been a “grave diplomatic mistake.”
Taiwan’s representative offices overseas are typically named the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” or “Taipei Representative Office,” in keeping with the host countries’ preference to avoid any references that would imply Taiwan is a separate country from China.
China responded to the naming controversy by recalling its ambassador to Vilnius and expelling Lithuania’s ambassador to Beijing, as well as suspending direct freight rail services to the Baltic nation and severely restricting Lithuanian products’ access to the Chinese market.
During Tuesday’s news briefing, Huang congratulated Lithuania for completing its elections.
“Taiwan looks forward to working with Lithuania’s new government,” he said.
Huang, who served as Taiwan’s first representative in Vilnius until January, said the ministry has maintained cordial relations with all major Lithuanian political parties since the opening of the office.
However, he would not say if Taiwan would change the office name if asked by the new Lithuanian government to do so.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS