KATHMANDU: Taiwan’s foreign ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ remarks at a press briefing in Geneva on Wednesday.
At the press briefing, Tedros accused Taiwan’s foreign ministry of being linked to a months-long campaign against him and said that since the emergence of the new coronavirus, he has been personally attacked, including receiving at times, death threats and racist abuse.
The ministry has demanded that WHO chief “immediately rectify his baseless allegations and apologize to our country.”
“This attack came from Taiwan,” said Tedros, a former Ethiopian health and foreign minister and the WHO’s first African leader.
He further said Taiwanese diplomats were aware of the attacks but did not dissociate themselves from them.
President Tsai Ing-wen also weighed in, saying on Facebook that Taiwan does not condone the use of racist remarks to attack those with different opinions.
Tedros was elected with the strong support of China, one of five permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council and which claims Taiwan as its own territory.
Taiwan is barred from the U.N. and has been stripped of its observer status at the WHO’s World Health Assembly.
Despite its close proximity to China and the frequency of travel between the sides, Taiwan has reported just 379 cases and five deaths.
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