Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (???) Wednesday welcomed a visit to Taiwan scheduled for March by the speaker of the Czech parliament's lower house, during a teleconference held earlier in the day, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
During the phone call with Markéta Pekarová Adamová, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, both sides talked about recent positive developments between both countries and areas of potential future cooperation, as well as the speaker's scheduled trip to Taiwan next month, MOFA said in a press release.
Wu also thanked the Czech Republic for helping Taiwan allowing both governments to jointly offer assistance to Ukraine which is facing Russian invasion, it said.
In response, Adamová said she is looking forward to the March visit, according to MOFA.
In a tweet, the lower house leader also made public her conversation with Wu during the teleconference, which lasted around 20 minutes.
"We talked about my planned trip to Asia when I will visit South Korea and Taiwan," she said in the tweet.
"Taiwan is an important partner and investor in the field of high-tech - a great opportunity for even deeper economic cooperation," she added.
In an earlier tweet made on Monday, Adamová also disclosed his Taiwan trip in March, while praising the newly-elected President Petr Pavel for his historic phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen (???) held earlier Monday.
"It is important to support partners who respect human rights and respect democracy," she tweeted.
In that Monday call, Tsai congratulated Pavel, a retired general and former chairman of NATO's military committee, the alliance's highest military body, on his landslide victory to the Czech presidency after on Saturday over former prime minister Andrej Babiš.
He will replace Milos Zeman, whose second term ends in March.
The Monday call to congratulate a president-elect of a country that does not have diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan's de jure name, was rare for a Taiwanese leader.
Political leaders in countries that formally recognize Beijing instead of Taipei, as does the Czech Republic, normally avoid having direct contact with ROC presidents to avoid angering the People's Republic of China.
The last time Tsai made public a phone call with a leader of a state with which Taiwan does not maintain diplomatic relations was on Dec. 2, 2016, with then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Though neither Adamová nor MOFA gave an exact date for the speaker's March visit, according to an online announcement made by the Czech-Taiwanese Business Chamber, the speaker is scheduled to carry out official engagements in Taipei from March 27 to 29 together with business representatives from the Czech Republic.
The delegation will then visit South Korea before heading back to Prague on April 1, according to the tentative itinerary available on the business chamber's website.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel