Vietnam’s United
Nations ambassador urged China on Tuesday to withdraw its oil rig and
more than 100 ships from the South China Sea to create “an environment”
for negotiations on the disputed waters.
But Ambassador Le Hoai
Trung said in an interview with the Associated Press that Beijing
refuses to engage in dialogue and insists there is no dispute, claiming
the area around the rig belongs to China.
The escalation in
tensions is the most serious in years between Vietnam and its massive
northern neighbor, which claims nearly all of the South China Sea.
China sent the rig
into the disputed waters on May 1, provoking a confrontation with
Vietnamese ships, complaints from Hanoi and street protests that turned
into bloody anti-Chinese riots. Hundreds of factories were damaged, and
China said four of its citizens were “brutally killed” and over 300
wounded.
Trung said “some
extreme elements” provoked by China’s deployment of the rig undertook
actions which the government “very much regrets.” He said many suspects
have been arrested and prosecuted, and the government has taken measures
to prevent a repetition of the violence.
Both Vietnam and China
have taken the dispute over the rig to the United Nations, circulating
rival documents among the UN General Assembly’s 193 member- states.
Vietnam has said it is considering legal action against China in an
international court. China has accused Vietnam of “illegally and
forcefully” disrupting the rig’s operation by sending armed ships and
ramming Chinese vessels.
The oil platform is
about 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the China-controlled Paracel
Islands, which Vietnam claims, and 278 kilometers (173 miles) from the
coast ofVietnam.
Trung said Vietnam has
“the legal basis and historical evidence to affirm our sovereign rights
over the area” where the rig is deployed, which the country says is
part of its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.
The ambassador said China’s refusal to discuss the dispute is provocative and raises “serious concerns.”
“We don’t want to be
provocative with this issue,” he said. “We want to have negotiations, to
have dialogue, or any other means of peaceful settlement of the
dispute.”
He added, “Up until
now we exercise our restraint, but of course we always, like any other
country, reserve the right of self-defense.”
Trung stressed, however, that after decades of war the Vietnamese people want peace “and friendly relations with China.”
source: AP / Business Mirror
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