Brussels, May 21 (CNA) Thirteen of Taiwan's 15 diplomatic allies had made appeals to the World Health Organization (WHO) as of Thursday, calling for an invitation to be issued for the country's participation in the WHO's decision-making body as an observer.
The appeals came days before the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), which is scheduled to be held virtually May 24 to June 11 and again excludes Taiwan.
WHO Secretary General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the decision on whether Taiwan should be invited to the WHA as an observer does not rest with him but rather with the representatives of the WHO's 194 member states.
In keeping with WHO procedure, the appeals filed by Taiwan's 13 allies will be reviewed by the organization's general affairs department, and the WHA will decided whether the proposal should be included on its agenda, he said.
According to information released by the WHO, the 13 countries that have advocated for Taiwan's participation in the 74th annual WHA meeting are Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Tuvalu.
As of Thursday, Taiwan's two other diplomatic allies, the Vatican and Paraguay, had not joined the call for Taiwan's inclusion. The Vatican, Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in Europe, holds only permanent observer status in the United Nations nations and rarely speaks on political issues at the WHA.
The deadline for registration for this year's WHA was May 10, and for the fifth consecutive year, Taiwan has not been invited to participate as an observer.
Taiwan, whose formal name is the Republic of China, was expelled from the United Nations in 1971 and from the WHO in 1972.
Since then, Taiwan has not been able to participate in the WHA, except for 2009-2016, when it attended as an observer through an invitation from the WHO amid warmer cross-Taiwan Strait relations.
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202105210006
