Taiwan will not raise travel alert for Honduras: Foreign ministry

"We will not up our travel advisory for Honduras, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation," said MOFA spokesman Henry Chen.

At the moment, the MOFA has in place a yellow alert for San Pedro Sula City in Honduras because of its poor public security. A yellow alert is the lowest on the MOFA's three-color travel advisory scale and serves as a reminder for travelers to exercise caution.

The 70-odd Taiwanese expatriates and businessmen in Honduras, which is one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the region, are all safe and the Foreign Ministry is in close contact with its embassy there, Chen said.

Honduras President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the country's army Sunday and forced into exile in Costa Rica, from where the leftist-aligned president denounced the military coup as illegal. The country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

The Honduran Congress later on Sunday named its speaker Roberto Micheletti as an interim leader.

Micheletti imposed a curfew for Sunday and Monday night after hundreds of Zelaya supporters took to the streets in the capital Tegucigalpa and blocked access to the presidential palace, calling for Zelaya's reinstatement.

Asked whether the MOFA will expand its travel alert if the protests escalate, Chen said that is a possibility, but so far the Foreign Ministry has not considered doing so.

Meanwhile, Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi said Monday that, due to safety concerns, Honduras has been dropped from President Ma Ying-jeou's itinerary for his upcoming state visit to some of Taiwan's allies in Central America.

Ma was scheduled to leave for Panama Monday night to attend the inauguration ceremony of Panamanian President-elect Ricardo Martinelli and then to travel to Nicaragua and Honduras.

Now that the Honduras leg of the trip has been canceled, Ma will return to Taiwan July 6, Wang said.

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