President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of May 14 with a delegation led by Dominican Republic Minister of the Armed Forces Sigfrido A. Pared Perez. In addition to welcoming the delegation to Taiwan on behalf of the government, military, and people of the ROC, the president also called for further promotion of interaction and cooperation to enhance the bilateral alliance and friendship.
In remarks, the president noted that the Republic of Haiti suffered devastating damage and loss of life after an earthquake in January 2010. That year, he attended the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa as President of the Republic of Honduras, and on his return to Taiwan he made a stop in the Dominican Republic, where he met with Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez Reyna and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to discuss assistance to Haiti. The ROC provided humanitarian assistance via the Dominican Republic, thereby allowing goods to safely reach their destination. President Ma remarked that the Dominican Republic's commitment to helping its neighbor left a deep impression on him.
The president stated that Minister Pared Perez visited Taiwan in 1999 and 2007 in his capacity as Director of National Intelligence, while this visit marks his first as Minister of the Armed Forces. President Ma commented that the ROC and the Dominican Republic are both committed to democracy, freedom, and wellbeing for the public. Bilateral relations have continued to grow since the establishment of diplomatic ties, he said, noting close people-to-people ties between the two countries. President Ma stated that after his inauguration in 2008 he led a delegation to the Dominican Republic in August of that year to attend the inauguration of former President Fernandez, and each side has received frequent visits by government officials from the other in recent years. In addition, the Dominican Republic has spoken on behalf of the ROC at the United Nations and other international venues, staunchly supporting the ROC's participation in the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization, he stated. This attests to the deep friendship between the two countries and their solid alliance, he added.
The president mentioned that the ROC has been dispatching military staff to the Dominican Republic since 2001 to receive advanced military education. To date, 13 members of the ROC military have graduated, and three are studying there now at the Command and General Staff College. Similarly, he said, since 2003 the Dominican Republic has dispatched members of its military to attend courses in Taiwan at the three military academies here and National Defense University, and to take part in the Curso Superior de Desarrollo Nacional (a training program carried out jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense for high-ranking officials from diplomatic allies and other friendly nations). To date, 79 individuals from the Dominican Republic have completed their studies and 15 are presently studying. The president stated that these initiatives have undoubtedly helped to foster interaction and exchanges among mid- and high-ranking officers, effectively enhancing mutual trust between the two sides and establishing even stronger cooperative relations.
The president mentioned that according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, fishing rights are determined by sovereignty which therefore is the basis of fishing rights negotiations between the ROC and other nations, so one can only discuss fishing rights from the standpoint of sovereignty. Nevertheless, he added, when a sovereignty dispute arises, contention over fishing rights can be resolved if the parties include within a fishing rights agreement language that makes it possible to shelve the sovereignty dispute.
President Ma stressed that the ROC is a peace-loving nation. On April 10, 2013 it signed a fisheries agreement with Japan that peacefully resolved a 40-year dispute, and it was the thinking outlined above that motivated the ROC government to unveil its East China Sea Peace Initiative. Now that the fishing rights issue has been resolved with Japan, the president further called for a similar concept to be used to establish peaceful and cooperative relations in all the seas around Taiwan.
The delegation was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Dominican Republic Ambassador to the ROC Rafaela Alburquerque de Gonzalez to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting were Secretary-General to the President Timothy Chin-Tien Yang (楊進添), National Security Council Secretary-General Jason C. Yuan (袁健生), Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱), and Chief of the General Staff Yen Ming (嚴明).