A senior Chinese mainland official said in Beijing Wednesday that charter flights across the Taiwan Straits for 2005 Spring Festival has nothing to do with governmental-level aviation agreements.

He Shizhong, an official with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said at a routine press conference that the questionrelating to charter flights constituted an internal affair of the Chinese people. This issue could be solved through negotiations using the mechanism established by the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).

But the negotiation has not yet begun, he acknowledged.

He said the opening of non-stop round-trip charter flights to Taiwan is for the benefit of those Taiwanese who have businesses on the mainland.

Pu Zhaozhou, vice chairman of the board of directors of the mainland-based straits aviation exchange commission, has sent a letter to his counterpart in Taiwan about the matters concerned. "We hope that Taiwan authorities could give a positive response as soon as possible," he said.

The charter flight attempt across the Taiwan Straits in 2003 was a success and it proved that the Spring Festival charter flights issue across Taiwan Straits was simple, convenient and easy to operate, and the technical matter involved was not complicated at all.

"As long as Taiwan authorities have sincerity, we have enough time to get fully prepared for the 2005 Spring Festival non-stop round-trip charter flights," he said.

Source: Xinhua