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From: Joe Moore
Date: 23 Jan 2001
Time: 23:17:59
Remote Name: 64.92.83.46
New York Times January 20, 2001
Iraq: Vietnam Flies In
Vietnam became the latest country to flaunt the United Nations air embargo on Iraq when a Vietnamese plane carrying Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan landed at the Baghdad airport, the Iraqi news agency reported. The plane, the first from Hanoi since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, brought a 100- member delegation, including the foreign, trade and industry ministers and businessmen.
(Reuters)
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Washington Times January 16, 2001 Pg. 6
Vietnam, U.S. Trade Blame For Failed Visit
Each says other halted defense trip
>From combined dispatches
Former foes Vietnam and the United States traded accusations yesterday over the cancellation of a planned visit to Hanoi by U.S. Pacific forces commander Adm. Dennis Blair, the first such visit since 1998.
The U.S. Defense Department insisted that Hanoi called off the admiral's trip.
"The admiral did not cancel the visit. The Vietnamese canceled the visit," said Marine Capt. Ricardo Player, a Pentagon spokesman who said he had no further details.
A spokesman for the Camp Smith, Hawaii-based Pacific Command, which carries out U.S. military operations in Asia and the Pacific, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking details.
Adm. Blair, who has been traveling in Southeast Asia, had been due to arrive for a three-day visit, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said. He had been scheduled to meet Vietnamese military and civilian leaders to discuss nascent U.S.-Vietnamese military relations among other things, the embassy said.
Hanoi, however, has denied the U.S. accusations, charging that it was Washington that canceled the trip. A Vietnamese Defense Ministry official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the U.S. had called off the visit without explanation just hours before Adm. Blair was due in Vietnam yesterday afternoon.
"We were all ready to receive the admiral when we were notified that he would not be coming," the official said.
But Adm. Blair's spokesman, Cmdr. John Singley, said Hanoi's version of events was "just not true," insisting it was the Vietnamese side and not the United States that had canceled the visit.
"The [U.S.] defense attache [in Hanoi] got a call on Saturday from the Ministry of Defense saying that the Vietnamese side regret[s] that Admiral Blair's visit must be postponed," Cmdr. Singley told AFP.
"They offered no explanation," he added.
On Thursday, Adm. Blair told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that he expected U.S. policy on China and Taiwan to remain unchanged under George W. Bush, who is to be sworn in as the 43rd U.S. president Saturday.
"The U.S. policy toward China has been pretty consistent through about six administrations, of both parties, and that's that we recognize one China and we say that the Taiwan issue should be resolved by peaceful means," Adm. Blair said.
"I think that's a pretty solid policy that I expect to continue in the future, and that is in the best interests of the Chinese and the Taiwanese," he said in response to reporters' questions.