Nine sport fishermen and four Taiwanese ocean patrol officers taken to Japan's Ishigaki Island since Sunday by the Japanese maritime authorities over a fishery dispute were expected to return to Taiwan Monday aboard a Taiwanese patrol vessel, Taiwan's representative office in Tokyo told selfnews later that day. According to the Taiwanese representative office, after negotiations with the Japanese authorities the 13 people were allowed to leave that Japanese island in the early afternoon and boarded a Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration (CGA) vessel bound for home. The Taiwanese recreational fishing boat, with a skipper, one crewman and nine anglers on board, was escorted by vessels of Japan's Maritime Safety Agency to the Japanese island of Ishigaki for investigation on charges of illegally operating in Japanese waters, the representative office said. As a result of the negotiations, Japan agreed to let the anglers go but insisted that the skipper and his crewman had to stay on Ishigaki and be investigated, the office said. According to information obtained by the CGA, the incident took place Sunday evening when the fishing boat, registered in Taipei County, was intercepted by Japanese Maritime Safety Agency vessels some 120 nautical miles east of the port of Suao in Taiwan's Yilan County. Although the CGA immediately sent one ship to the spot, followed later by another three, and a total of four CGA officers boarded the fishing boat to help settle the matter, the CGA said the boat, the anglers and its crew were taken to Ishigaki by the Japanese vessels after a standoff of more than 10 hours. At one point during the altercation, there were 18 Japanese Maritime Safety Agency officers aboard the fishing boat, against just four CGA officers. According to the Lanyang Fishery Radio in Suao, which received calls for help from the Taiwanese ship, it was chased and monitored by three Japanese vessels while operating in an area between Latitude 24 North and Longitude 123 East. Meanwhile Monday, the Interchange Association, the de-facto Japanese embassy in Taipei, confirmed that the skipper of the fishing boat was being interrogated by the Japanese authorities on Ishigaki. Earlier that same day, Chang Chi-ping, deputy director-general of the Information and Cultural Affairs Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), said the ministry had a full understanding of the incident and was negotiating with Japan in the hope of settling the issue adequately and rationally. 