ARATS chief visits widow of late former SEF chairman in Taipei

Source: Xinhua | 11-04-2008 08:25

TAIPEI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland's chief negotiator on Taiwan affairs, Chen Yunlin, visited Koo Yen Cho-yun, the widow of Koo Chen-fu, former chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), here on Monday afternoon.

Chen Yunlin (L), president of the Chinese mainland's  Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS),  meets with Yen Cho-yun, widow of Koo Chen-fu, former chairman  of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), in Taipei of southeast China's Taiwan Province Nov. 3, 2008. Chen  Yunlin arrived in Taiwan on Nov. 3 for a five-day trip. (Xinhua/Chen Binhua)

"It was regrettable that Wang Daohan, the former president of the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, did not visit Taiwan" when Wang and Koo were leading the talks across the Strait in the 1990s, said Koo.

Chen's visit had fulfilled her husband's wish and she was very happy to see that, she said.

Her husband, who died in 2005, cared deeply about peaceful development across the Strait, she said. "Both Wang and he had high expectations for cross-Strait relations but [the relationship]did not move forward since their meeting in Shanghai in 1998.

"Chen's current visit showed that cross-Strait relations pulled through a winter and welcomed the spring," she said.

She believed that the SEF and the Association, known as ARATS, could reach a mutually beneficial result during the coming talks.

Chen visited on the day he arrived in Taiwan for the ARATS-SEF talks.