Taipei, Nov. 4 (CNA) Taiwan hopes the United States will acknowledge and not "ignore" its claim of sovereignty over the disputed Tiaoyutai Islands, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said Thursday.
"We claim full sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais and have expressed our position through different channels to the U.S. We hope that the U.S. will not ignore Taiwan's position in its attempts to help resolve the dispute, " said Bruce J.D. Linghu, director-general of the ministry's Department of North American Affairs.
Linghu made the remarks in response to a reporter's question about a U.S. offer to mediate a China-Japan row over the islands, which lie about 100 nautical miles off Taiwan's northeastern tip in the East China Sea and are claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered the previous week at the East Asia Summit in Vietnam to hold three-way talks to cool the tension between China and Japan over the islands -- known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyutais in China -- a move that was flatly rejected by China.
China and Japan have been engaged in a diplomatic row since Sept. 7, when the Japanese authorities arrested a Chinese fishing boat skipper after his trawler collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels in the disputed area.
Taiwan fears that it will continue to be excluded from international dialogues regarding the Tiaoyutais dispute, which has been the case since September, and "that is why we have to keep talking to the U.S., " said Linghu.
"We hope that the relevant parties will adopt a low-key approach to dealing with the issue rather than making high-profile moves that could produce results that serve nobody's interests, " he went on.
"We will keep monitoring the situation and keep talking to the U.S. to understand its follow-up considerations, " he said, adding that it is unlikely that the U.S. will submit another offer to mediate. (By Chris Wang) ENDITEM/J