The next fishery meeting between Taiwan and the Philippines is expected to be held soon in an effort to establish bilateral fishery cooperation in overlapping waters, Foreign Minister David Lin said Wednesday.
“We’re ready for it,” Lin said during a legislative committee hearing, in response to lawmakers’ questions on the progress toward the next round of fishery talks between the two sides.
Due to the recent Muslim rebel attack in the southern Philippines, the government there has not yet decided when to send a delegation to Taipei for the meeting, Lin said.
But “I believe the meeting will take place soon,” he added.
The meeting was scheduled for mid-September but was postponed due to the Philippines’ internal problems, a diplomatic source said, declining to divulge any further information on the issue.
It has been more than three months since Taiwan and the Philippines held a meeting in Manila to address fishing disputes in their overlapping waters.
During the June 14 meeting, both sides reached an initial consensus, which included among other issues that there should be no use of force or violence during patrols of fishing grounds and that a mechanism should be established to inform each other of any fishery related incidents.
The mechanism will facilitate notification of incidents such as chases, and boarding and inspection of fishing boats from either side and the arrest and detention of fishermen, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
The Taiwanese delegation to the meeting was led by Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Tsay Tzu-yaw, while Asis Perez, director of the Philippines’ Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, led the Philippines side.
The two sides are trying to reach a fishery agreement in the wake of an incident on May 9, in which a Philippine Coast Guard vessel opened fire on a Taiwan fishing boat in an overlapping exclusive economic zone of the two countries, killing a 65-year-old Taiwanese fisherman.
The Central News Agency