MTAG: TAIWAN DELIVERS IRAN/NORTH KOREA VISA

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003493 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/TC AND ISN/MTR E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2026 TAGS: ETTC UNSCR TW NKWG SUBJECT: MTAG: TAIWAN DELIVERS IRAN/NORTH KOREA VISA INFORMATION REF: A. TAIPEI 3388 ¶B. STATE 168991 ¶C. STATE 168812 ¶D. STATE 156220 Classified By: AIT Deputy Director Robert S. Wang, REASONS 1.4 B/C ¶1. (S) As per the agreement reported Ref A, Taiwan has provided AIT with detailed information on North Korean and Iranian nationals receiving Taiwan visas for review by Washington agencies. AIT has forwarded the information via the State Intranet system to EAP/TC and ISN/MTR. Separately, AIT delivered to the Taiwan Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) the Washington agency comments contained in Refs B&C on Taiwan export license applications. End Summary. ¶2. (S) AIT Econ officers met with Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) Section Chief Chou Chung-hsing again on October 12 to exchange compact disks (CDs) of information useful in combating terrorism and weapons proliferation. Taiwan's CDs: The Ying -------------- ¶3. (S) Taiwan's CDs contained the name, passport number, date of birth, sex, visa type, number of entries, issue place, issue date, enter-before date, duration of stay, visa number, remarks, and a digital photograph for each of the most recent 10 Iranians and North Koreans granted visas to travel to Taiwan. Chou explained that the MOFA computer technicians claimed to have difficulty sorting their visa database by nationality, so Chou instructed them to manually select the 10 most recent visa cases for each nationality. However, Chou said that by the time of the next exchange his technicians would be able to perform computerized sorting of the data. ¶4. (S) Section Chief Chou told AIT that there were 1290 visas issued to Iranian nationals in 2005 and 942 visas issued to Iranians in 2006 through the end of September. This compares with only 41 visas issued to North Korean nationals in 2005 and 51 visas issued to North Koreans in 2006 through the end of September. This averages out to about 100 visas per month to Iranians and about 3-5 per month for North Koreans. Chou noted that since Taiwan announced tighter restrictions on North Korean travel to Taiwan on September 1 in support of UNSCR 1695 there have been no visas issued to North Koreans. Taiwan had received one visa application from a North Korean in Japan who wanted to visit Taiwan for tourism, but the application was rejected since under the new restrictions only travel for business or visiting relatives is permitted. AIT's CD: The Yang -------------- ¶5. (S) In return, AIT provided Chou with a CD containing the September 28 update of the U.S. Treasury Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. Chou commented that Taiwan periodically received some information on lost/stolen foreign passports through intelligence channels, but that his impression was the data was not complete or timely. He said that Taiwan was still unable to obtain a complete list of lost/stolen passports similar to the information that Interpol shares with its members. He also noted that Taiwan lacks a channel for reporting its own lost/stolen passports to Interpol, such as the more than 500 Taiwan passports stolen from a local travel agency on October 5. The Path to our Goal -------------- ¶6. (S) Both AIT and MOFA CA view this first data exchange as a test of a new information-sharing channel. AIT has transmitted the visa data to EAP/TC and ISN/MTR via the State Department Intranet system. Both CA and AIT will keep TAIPEI 00003493 002 OF 002 records of the number of applicants, how long it takes Washington agencies to provide comments on the applicants, the number of applicants scoring "hits" indicating suspicious intentions, and follow-up actions taken by Taiwan authorities. AIT expects that the testing phase will provide information essential for planning how to move closer to the Ref D goal of allowing Washington agencies a chance to review visa applications prior to adjudication. As noted Ref A, Section Chief Chou agreed that after the testing phase there could be more realistic discussions on how to move forward. Information Delivered -------------- ¶7. (S) Separately, AIT delivered to BOFT the Washington agency comments contained in Refs B&C on Taiwan export license applications. BOFT noted that export license applications 1, 2, & 14 were for items on the Wassenaar Arrangement lists. YOUNG