Taiwan has lodged a protest against the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for excluding its officials from a fisheries meeting in July, reports Focus Taiwan.
In a statement referring to the meeting of the FAO’s Committee on Fisheries (COFI), the ministry of foreign affairs asked Taiwan’s relevant representative office to send a letter to the FAO to express the government’s “stern protest” against the organization’s “discriminatory treatment” of Taiwanese experts seeking to participate in the meeting.
The letter stressed that Taiwan is a major deep-sea fishing nation that has always complied with international fishery norms.
The ministry statement came after news broke this week that two Taiwanese officials were rejected from the COFI’s 32nd session in Italy, allegedly due to pressure from China.