President Ma rules out flights across Taiwan Strait meridian

President Ma Ying-jeou said in Panama Thursday that his government will not consider opening direct flights across the center line of the Taiwan Strait due to national defense concerns. Ma, who arrived in Panama City Tuesday to attend Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli's inauguration, was responding to media reports that a Chinese official again called for opening of direct flights directly across the Taiwan Strait and establishing a mutual trust mechanism with Taiwan. Wang Yi, director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, reportedly made the appeal while meeting with a visiting Taiwanese legislative delegation in Beijing on Wednesday. At present, direct flights between Taiwan and China are generally routed over the East China Sea and South China Sea rather than directly across the Taiwan Strait. During an informal gathering with Taiwanese reporters covering his two-leg Central America diplomatic tour that will take him next to Nicaragua, Ma said Chinese authorities have suggested on many previous occasions that direct flights should cross the Taiwan Strait center line. "We have consistently made it clear to Chinese officials that we cannot accept such a proposal at the moment because we need that airspace for air force pilot training," Ma said. As to the establishment of a military mutual trust mechanism, Ma said such a framework could be forged only after the signing of a peace agreement with China. "While the two sides indeed have to strike a cross-strait peace pact, we believe it's not an issue of great urgency for the moment," Ma said, adding that there are more urgent issues for the two sides to negotiate right now. The two sides have already signed nine agreements over the past year, each of which were of great urgency, Ma said. "In the future, our two sides should continue working together to address various issues in a gradual manner," he added. Asked whether he is likely to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who concurrently serves as general secretary of the Communist Party of China, after he takes the helm of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang, Ma said he has no such plans at present. "At the moment, the most important issue lies with normalizing cross-strait economic and trade relations, " Ma explained, with the forging of a cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement the next objective. Meanwhile, senior officials accompanying Ma on his current trip said Taiwan cannot agree to the opening of flights routed directly across 0