Hanoi: Secret talks have restarted

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 8

Hanoi: Secret talks have restarted

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok The second American Congressional delegation to visit Vietnam this week has left for Hanoi amid claims and denials that Vietnam and the United States are holding talks on normalising relations.

In Hanoi, the Vietnamese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr Nguyen Co Thach) told reporters accompanying a delegation led by a Democratic Congressman, Benjamin Rosenthal, that the talks, suspended last September were under way again at the request of the United States. In Washington, however, an Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke, said that there had been no talks of any kind on normalisation since last northern autumn because of the refugee problem. The two countries were talking on other subjects.

The delegation led by Mr Rosenthal left Vietnam yesterday after a 24-hour visit aimed principally at discussion of refugee issues. One member of the delegation, Representative Robert Nolan, said that they had been assured Vietnam was taking strong steps to halt the flood of refugees, including the prosecution of 4000 people for attempting to leave illegally. Some had been executed for organising escapes.

Representative Robert Drinan said the Vietnamese offered a complex explanation of the mass exodus of ethnic Chinese and Mr Nolan termed the situation “somewhat understandable." “The Vietnamese officials have a serious fear of the Chinese Government and see the Chinese as a fifth column within their nation,” Mr Drinan said. “They reminded us several times of the United States incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War Two."