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Taiwan, mainland agree to landmark direct air links
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-15 17:07
Taiwan and the mainland agreed to landmark direct flights for next month's
Lunar New Year holidays, a mainland official said.
The flights would run from January 29 until February 20, head of the Chinese
delegation and vice chairman of the board of directors of the mainland-based
Straits Aviation Exchange Commission, Pu Zhaozhou, told reporters in Macao.
Pu Zhaozhou (R), vice chairman of
the board of directors of the mainland-based Straits Aviation Exchange
Commission, chats with Mike Lo, chairman of Taipei Airlines Association,
during a news conference after their meeting in Macao January 15, 2005.
Taiwan and the mainland reached an agreement on Saturday on landmark
direct flights over the Chinese New Year holidays between Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou in mainland China, along with Taipei and Kaohsiung
in Taiwan, a move which could ease tensions and improve ties between the
two sides of the Taiwan Straits. [Reuters] | The
24 round-trip flights would fly over Hong Kong and connect the Chinese cities of
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou with Taipei and Kaosiung in Taiwan, Pu said,
reading from a statement.
Taipei has banned direct transport exchanges across the Taiwan Strait
since 1949.
During the Chinese New Year holidays in 2003, six
Taiwanese airliners were allowed to fly to Shanghai to pick up Taiwanese
businesspeople and take them home via Hong Kong or Macao. There was no similar
service in 2004.
Despite the longstanding ban on direct links, limited direct exchanges --
known as "mini-links" -- were opened in 2002 between Taiwan's frontline islands
of Matsu and Kinmen and selected ports in southeastern Fujian province.
The cross-Straits ties have been increasingly strained since the re-election
of Taiwan's pro-independence leader Chen Shui-bian in March last
year.
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