Obama Ends Arms Export Embargo on Vietnam


Obama Ends Arms Export Embargo on Vietnam

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States' relationship with Vietnam is moving to a "new moment," including an end to the 50-year-old American arms embargo on its former war rival and a host of new business ties between the two nations.

"Just a generation ago, we were adversaries and now we are friends," Obama said during a news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.

Other signs of cooperation between the former combatants in the Vietnam War include work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the proposed trade deal involving a dozen Asian and Pacific Rim nations; new business sales; more military cooperation; and a series of cultural exchanges that include the introduction of the US Peace Corps to Vietnam, the USA Today reported.

In announcing the end of ban on arms sales to Vietnam, Obama described it as a vestige of the Cold War that is no longer necessary as the US and Vietnam continue the process of normalization that began in 1995.

Obama claimed the decision to fully lift the arms embargo, which the United States partially lifted in 2014, has nothing to do with the growing Chinese military presence in the region, and said that each weapons sale to Hanoi will be evaluated on a "case-by-case" basis to make sure it is appropriate.

"We examine what's appropriate and what's not," he said.

Obama also said that the United States and Vietnam continue to have differences over human rights, and  protested the number of Vietnamese political prisoners.

In a nod to the war that ended in 1975, Obama thanked Vietnam's government for helping the US locate the remains of missing soldiers, and he pledged to help the Vietnamese government with the ongoing removal of land mines and un-exploded ordnance left over from the conflict.

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