TAIPEI (Reuters) – Ensuring Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te can attend this weekend’s funeral of Pope Francis is currently the “most important aim” for Taipei’s foreign ministry, Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu said on Wednesday.
While a slew of countries, including the United States, have announced their heads of state will attend Saturday’s funeral, diplomatically isolated and Chinese-claimed Taiwan, which has formal ties with the Vatican, has yet to say who is going.
Taipei has watched nervously in recent years as Pope Francis sought to improve ties with China.
Speaking to reporters at the Catholic Archdiocese of Taipei after Lai visited to pay his respects to the late pope, Wu said the government was working hard for Lai to be able to attend the funeral in person.
“This is the foreign ministry’s most important aim,” Wu said, adding talks were in progress with the Vatican.
The Vatican had its “considerations” about who from Taiwan might attend and its own “international relations”, Wu said.
Lai did not answer reporters’ questions as he visited the archdiocese.
The presidential office said arrangements for a delegation to the funeral were ongoing and any announcement would be made at an appropriate time. It did not elaborate.
The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
Taiwanese presidents have attended high-level events at the Vatican before. Then-President Ma Ying-jeou went to Francis’ inaugural mass in 2013.
Taiwan has expressed concern over the efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties, saying China has no respect for religious freedom.
In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties.
China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday expressed condolences over Pope Francis’ death, but said it had no information to share on who might attend the funeral.
China says Taiwan is one of its provinces with no right to state-to-state relations, a position the government in Taipei strongly rejects.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, Yimou Lee and Angie Teo; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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