Taiwan hopes to maintain friendly ties with Nicaragua

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday November 8, 2006

Taipei- Taiwan on Wednesday expressed the hope to maintain friendly ties with Nicaragua following leftist leader Daniel Ortega's win in the presidential election, amid rumours that the president-elect plans to drop Taiwan to recognize China. "We respect the outcome of Nicaragua's election. When Nicaragua has declared Ortega the winner of the election, we will congratulate him and will send a delegation to attend his inauguration," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Chien-yeh told the Central News Agency (CNA).

Wang said that Taiwan and Nicaragua have maintained friendly ties, and it's too early to predict if the election result will affect bilateral ties.

"I believe that after Ortega has come to power, he will have new ways and ideas, but we hope that the two countries can maintain friendly ties," CNA quoted the foreign minister as saying.

Nicaragua launched diplomatic ties with Republic of China (ROC) in 1930 and continued to recognize the ROC government after the Chinese Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile, still called the ROC government.

But in 1985, Ortega's leftist Sandinista government recognized China, forcing Taipei to cut ties with Managua, but Nicaragua resumed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1990 when Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, a political moderate, became president.

Taiwan is worried about the come-back of Ortega because among his election promises were to restore ties with China and reduce commercial contacts with Taiwan.

Ortega said in May that Nicaragua should reconsider its relationship with "the most attractive market in the world."

"We will respect the investments and commercial activities of Taiwan, but Nicaragua's diplomatic relations should be with China," he said.

Nicaragua is one of the 24 countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, about half of which are in Latin America.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency