• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

U.S. ENCOURAGES MORE FORMAL CROSS-STRAIT TALKS

Central News Agency

2005-05-05 12:59:27

    Washington, May 4 (CNA) The U.S. State Department reiterated Wednesday its stance of encouraging cross-strait dialogue and contacts, saying, however, that eventually, there should be more formal political talks between the duly elected government in Taiwan and the people in mainland China.

    State Department spokesman Richard Boucher made the remarks at a press briefing in response to questions raised regarding Taiwan opposition People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's upcoming visit to China.

    Soong, at the head of a PFP delegation, was scheduled to leave for China Thursday.

    Pointing out that Soong certainly is one of the figures in Taiwan that U.S. representatives keep in touch with, the spokesman said that as far as Soong's trip to China is concerned, he would say what the State Department said the other day about the travel of other figures to the mainland. "We encourage contacts. We encourage discussion. It helps set the environment and produce understanding between Taiwan and the mainland. But we also recognize that in the end, discussions about status and political negotiations have to take place in a more formal way between the representatives that were elected on Taiwan and the people on the mainland," he said.

    Asked whether the United States has a position on the "92 consensus" agreement between Taiwan and mainland China, Boucher said that Washington has always encouraged dialogue between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and will continue to take that position. ¡@¡@The spokesman also declined to give any political commentary on an assessment of Taiwan leading opposition Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan's recent visit to China, saying only that "it's good for the two sides to talk to each other at these levels, for people to visit back and forth and have a dialogue and a discussion." "We have always encouraged more contacts and more dialogue, " he further said.

(By Oliver Lin and P.C.tang)

Enditem/Li