Taiwan gov't seeks cordial ties with Lithuania's new coalition

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) Taiwan's government is closely watching the incoming center-left Lithuania coalition government and hopes cordial relations with Vilnius will continue, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said Tuesday.

Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of European Affairs, made the remarks when asked at a weekly news briefing about Taiwan's interactions with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) and other opposition parties in the Baltic state.

The LSDP won 52 out of 141 parliamentary seats in Lithuania's Oct. 13-27 elections, with incumbent Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė's center-right Homeland Union finishing a distant second with only 28 seats.

The LSDP's Gintautas Paluckas led the party in this year's elections and will likely serve as prime minister at the head of a center-left coalition in the Seimas, Lithuania's parliament.

Following the elections, Paluckas told Lithuanian media that he wished to restore full diplomatic relations with China, repairing a rift caused by the inclusion of "Taiwanese" in the name of Taiwan's representative office in Vilnius.

An English-language Lithuanian National Radio and Television report on Oct. 31 quoted Paluckas as saying the name of the representative office, which opened in Vilnius on Nov. 18, 2021, had been a "grave diplomatic mistake."

Taiwan representative offices overseas are typically named the "Taipei Economic and Cultural Office" or "Taipei Representative Office," in keeping with the host countries' preference to avoid any references that would imply Taiwan is a separate country from China.

China responded to the naming controversy by recalling its ambassador to Vilnius and expelling Lithuania's ambassador to Beijing, as well as suspending direct freight rail services to the Baltic nation and severely restricting Lithuanian products' access to the Chinese market.

During Tuesday's news briefing, Huang expressed the Taiwan government's congratulations to Lithuania for completing its most recent elections.

"Taiwan looks forward to working with Lithuania's new government," he said.

Huang, who served as Taiwan's first representative in Vilnius until January 2024, said the ministry had maintained cordial relations with all major Lithuanian political parties since opening the office.

However, Huang would not say if Taiwan would change the office name if asked by the new Lithuanian government to do so.

Commenting on the same issue in the Legislature, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told lawmakers that his ministry would "do its best to communicate [with the incoming Lithuanian government] in the hope of maintaining the office name as it has been agreed upon by both countries."