The US president, Barack Obama suspended on Monday (23/05) the embargo on arms sales to Vietnam. The restriction was one of the last vestiges of the war that pitted the two countries until 1975.
"The United States fully suspend the ban on military equipment sales to Vietnam, which has existed for about 50 years," Obama said in the capital Hanoi, next to the Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.
The American president is in Vietnam for an official three-day visit. Concern about the growing Chinese advance in the South China Sea disputed is common between the two countries. Obama, however, denied that the end of the Vietnam arms trade ban has some relationship with Beijing.
"The decision to lift the ban was not based in China, but in our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process on the path of normalization of relations with Vietnam," he said. "At this stage, both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation, including our military."
Among the main objectives of the visit are to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP, its acronym in English), which has been signed, but finds resistance in the US Congress, and strengthen ties with countries in the region.
Obama will also make a historic trip to Hiroshima. It will be the first American president to visit Memorial Park Hiroshima Peace, dedicated to the tens of thousands of victims of the atomic bomb dropped by the United States in the Japanese city during the 2nd World War. Obama said, however, that will not make a formal apology.
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