Thailand, Vietnam hold talks

Thailand, Vietnam hold talks

HANOI (Reuter): Vietnam and Thailand, involved in a recent
naval clash over fishing rights in the Gulf of Thailand, have
made progress on delimiting boundaries in the area and an
agreement is within sight, Vietnam says.

Officials held five days of talks this week in Ho Chi Minh
City about the two countries' overlapping continental shelves,
the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Saturday
night.

"They noted with satisfaction the progress of the meeting and
that at this meeting the two sides' points of view moved much
closer than those in previous meetings," VNA said.

"Both delegations were of the view that a final agreement
could reasonably be predicted soon," it said.

Clashes over fishing rights are common in the gulf, where the
Thai and Vietnamese continental shelves overlap for about 6,000
square kilometers.

Two Vietnamese sailors and a Thai fisherman were killed on May
31 in a clash involving gunboats from both countries when Vietnam
seized six Thai trawlers it said were fishing in Vietnamese
waters.

Vietnamese authorities have not subsequently indicated whether
the Thai boats and fishermen were still held.

The VNA report of the meeting did not mention the clash.