TAIPEI, (AFP) - Taiwan`s National Security Bureau has recalled all intelligence agents stationed abroad for a loyalty test after a top US official was accused of passing documents to Taiwanese agents, a report says.
The Taipei-based China Times reported that Hsueh Shih-min, chief of the bureau, has ordered all overseas agents to return home for a special meeting.
Agents will be given a loyalty test and undergo lie detection testing as part of the bureau`s internal review, it reported, without specifying what a loyalty test would involve.
However, a Presidential Office official denied reports that the agents have been recalled.
The China Times said Hsueh returned from Washington earlier this month where he met US State Department and Central Intelligence Bureau officials for talks on cooperation.
He reportedly left not long before Donald Keyser, former principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was seen passing documents to two Taiwanese agents on September 4 in a Washington restaurant.
Keyser, who advised Powell on China issues, was not charged with spying in the court papers but with violating State Department rules by failing to disclose a trip to Taiwan in September 2003 where he met one of the island`s agents.
Local reports said Chen Nien-tsu, the female agent Keyser met in Taipei last year and later in the Washington restaurant, has already returned to the island.
Another agent, Huang Kuan-hsuen, is reportedly still in Washington.