July 11, 2013
Sang was to travel to the United States on July 24, an official from Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on condition of anonymity, in only the second visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the two countries normalised relations in 1995.
He was to have a meeting with Obama the next day during which he would mention the role of the US in the ongoing territorial dispute with Beijing over parts of the South China Sea.
China claims almost all of the sea, which is also the subject of overlapping claims by several other countries in the area.
Last month Sang made a visit to Beijing to discuss the dispute.
The Vietnamese side will also call on the US to remove a ban on the sale of lethal weapons to the South-East Asian nation, the official said.
The ban is a response to Vietnam’s poor human rights record. Activists and foreign governments have criticized an increasing crackdown on bloggers and activists in recent months.
The trial of prominent dissident lawyer Le Quoc Quan on charges of tax evasion was due this week but postponed indefinitely at the last minute. Human Rights Watch called the charges “spurious.”
“President Obama should remind Truong Tan Sang that the key to unleashing Vietnam’s economic potential and ensuring its security is through empowering the Vietnamese people,” said Duy Hoang, a spokesperson for pro-democracy group Viet Tan, which the Vietnamese government describes as a terrorist organisation.
Source: Voice of Russia