China and Taiwan "smoothly" concluded talks on the death of two Chinese fishermen near the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen.
Taiwan officials apologized to the bereaved families, a spokesperson for Taiwan said, while vowing that the island would exert its jurisdiction in waters it claims.
The two fishermen were killed on Feb. 14 when their boat capsized after its crew refused an inspection by Taiwanese authorities who had spotted it in its “prohibited waters” around Kinmen, Taipei said. Two other crew members aboard the vessel from the Chinese province of Fujian survived and were eventually returned to China, but Taiwan retained the two bodies and the boat.
China, which says Taiwan is its territory and does not recognize Taipei’s claims of sovereignty, condemned the incident, saying it had stirred widespread outrage and later stepped up its patrols and military exercises near the island, while occasionally detaining Taiwanese fishing boats.
Taiwan has maintained its policy of driving out Chinese fishing boats from what it sees as its prohibited waters around the island.
"Concluded smoothly," Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said in a release after the Tuesday talks with officials from China's Taiwan Affairs Office.
Li Zhaohui - deputy director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in the Chinese city of Quanzhou and China’s representative at the talks - confirmed that an agreement had been reached, Taiwan’s Focus Taiwan media outlet quoted him as saying.
Li said he hoped the “relevant parties in Taiwan” would honor the agreement and provide a resolution for the families.
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‘Regrets’
Taiwan media has reported that Taiwan had agreed to pay out 1.5 million yuan (US$207,266) each in compensation for the two dead fishermen.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council spokesperson Chiu Chui-cheng said details of the agreement would not be released but entrepreneurs concerned about cross-strait relations had privately raised “humanitarian aid” for the families. He declined to identify who raised the funds or say how much.
Chiu said the incident was an accident and had been “resolved through persistent communication and efforts” by both sides, adding that Taiwanese representatives had “repeatedly expressed our regrets, apologized and comforted the bereaved families for their suffering and loss of loved ones.”
The bodies of the dead fishermen had been returned to their families and the boat had also been sent back, he added.
Taiwan would continue “to assert its jurisdiction and law enforcement authority in our waters,” Chiu said, noting that the boat that capsized was unregistered. He called on both sides to strictly enforce prohibitions against such vessels to prevent similar incidents from occurring.
The most effective way to prevent such incidents from developing into bigger conflict was by maintaining clear and open lines of communication, he said.
Representatives of the families of the fishermen who died attended the talks.
Kinmen is an outlying archipelago less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from China’s Fujian province but more than 180 km (112 miles) from Taiwan’s mainland.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.