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Barack Obama lifts Vietnam arms embargo for first time since war

The President is on a trip to the Southeast Asian country with aims of developing ties between the two nations

Will Worley
Monday 23 May 2016 07:23 BST
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US lifts embargo on Vietnam

The US has lifted a decades-long embargo on the export of arms to Vietnam in a historic step that draws a line under the two countries' old enmity and underscores their shared concerns about Beijing's growing military clout.

The move comes during President Obama's first trip to Hanoi in an attempt to develop ties between the two nations in the face of an increasingly aggressive China.

Mr Obama said the move was intended as a step toward normalising relations and to eliminate a "lingering vestige of the Cold War".

"At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation," the President said, adding that he expected deepening cooperation between the two nation's militaries.

Mr Obama is seeking to strike a diplomatic balance with Vietnam amid Chinese efforts to strengthen claims to disputed territory in the South China Sea, one of the world's most important waterways.

Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang said: “Vietnam very much appreciates the US decision to completely lift the ban on lethal weapon sales to Vietnam, which is the clear proof that both countries have completely normalised relations.”

US lawmakers and activists have previously urged Mr Obama to press the communist leadership for greater freedoms before lidfting the embargo. Vietnam holds about 100 political prisoners.

The United States partially lifted the embargo in 2014, but Vietnam wanted full access as it tries to deal with China's land reclamation and military construction in nearby seas.

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Mr Obama arrived in Hanoi late on Sunday, making him the third sitting president to visit the country since the end of the war. Four decades after the fall of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, and two decades after President Bill Clinton restored relations with the nation, Obama is eager to upgrade relations with the emerging power whose rapidly expanding middle class beckons as a promising market for US goods and an offset to China's growing strength.

He is expected to make the case for the approval of the controversial 12-nation Trans-Pacific Trade agreement, which has stalled in Congress and faces strong opposition from the 2016 presidential candidates.

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