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Vietnam, China Agree to Speed up Talks on Sea Borders
Vietnam and China have agreed to speed up their talks on setting out the sea borders in the Gulf of Tonkin in a bid to resolve the dragging issue this year, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.
"The two countries have agreed to accelerate these negotiations by taking active, flexible and diverse approaches hoping to reach an early solution which is acceptable to both sides," a ministry spokesman said.
The two sides held five days of "friendly and frank" expert-level talks in Hanoi which ended on Tuesday, the spokesman added.
"The experts held in-depth discussions on concrete issues linked to defining the Gulf of Tonkin," he said, adding they renewed their determination to reach an accord this year.
The Gulf washes the shores of southern China and northern Vietnam.
A new round of negotiations to define the sea borders will be held next month in Beijing.
The talks were launched in 1993, more than a decade after the brief but bloody conflict which pitted the two communist neighbours following Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, which was then an ally of Beijing.
In December they signed a bilateral accord setting out their joint land borders, but they are still in dispute over the Paracel and Spratleys islands in the South China Sea.
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