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Honduras says it will keep 'fluid' ties with Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

02/04/2022 03:46 PM

Tegucigalpa, Feb. 3 (CNA) Honduras' Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina has said the Central American nation will maintain its diplomatic ties with Taiwan while describing the relationship as "fluid".

"In the case of Taiwan we are maintaining a fluid relationship," Reina told AFP while affirming that Honduras and the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro had resumed diplomatic relations that were severed in 2010.

The newly inaugurated Honduran President Xiomara Castro had vowed during her campaign that she would switch recognition to China if she won, although her transition team later said the new government would maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Moreover, Castro's decision to ally Honduras more closely with the current Venezuelan administration puts it out of step with Taiwan, which has continued to recognize self-declared interim president and Maduro opponent Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate leader.

Castro was sworn in as president last week following a ceremony attended by Taiwan's Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), United States Vice President Kamala Harris, and other government leaders.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official has said he believed that the relationship between Taiwan and Honduras would "stay strong."

Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, told a House committee hearing that Harris had raised the issue of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and Honduras with Castro during her trip to Tegucigalpa.

According to Nichols, Castro responded by saying that her government intended to continue relations with Taipei.

Nichols added that the U.S. had raised the same issue with eight of the countries in the Western Hemisphere that Taiwan has diplomatic relations with.

"We continue to talk about the benefits of that relationship, and the shared values of respectful democracy and human rights that Taiwan espouses, and the benefits that we all receive from an active Taiwan in our hemisphere," he said.

Taiwan currently has 14 diplomatic allies, most of which are located in the South Pacific, Latin American, and Caribbean regions.

(By Stacy Hsu and Teng Pei-ju)

Enditem/ASG