Ministry calls for peaceful resolution in Guatemala issueStaff writer, CNATaiwan on Tuesday expressed hope that Guatemala’s ongoing controversy over its newly elected leader would be resolved peacefully, days after prosecutors there tried to prevent Guatemalan president-elect Bernardo Arevalo from taking office next month. Cheng Li-cheng, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Arevalo, son of former Guatemala president Juan Jose Arevalo Bermejo, won his country’s presidential runoff in August by beating former Guatemalan first lady Sandra Torres Casanova by a 61 to 39 percent margin. “We believe it is perfectly feasible to have good relations with both the [People’s] Republic of China and Taiwan,” Arevalo told Reuters during a post-victory interview in August. Following Honduras’ decision to cut ties with Taiwan in March, Taiwan was left with only 13 diplomatic allies worldwide, with Guatemala and Belize the only ones in Central America.
