[NEWS] China oil firm says withdrawing disputed oil rig

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

 From http://www.businessasia.com/:

 China oil firm says withdrawing disputed oil rig 
 By Mure Dickie 
 BEIJING, April 4 (Reuter) - China's main offshore oil firm 
 said on Friday it was withdrawing an oil exploration rig that 
 sparked a diplomatic crisis with Vietnam by drilling in waters 
 claimed by the two communist neighbours. 
 Vietnamese officials and naval officers said China's Kan Tan 
 III rig had already left the area of the South China Sea where 
 it had been prospecting for oil and gas since early last month. 
 "The exploration work (of the Kan Tan III) has been 
 completed, the plan is for it to leave during these two days," 
 said an official of the China National Offshore Oil Corp. 
 Hanoi and Beijing have agreed to hold talks to resolve the 
 latest Sino-Vietnamese territorial row, which was triggered by 
 the Kan Tan III's activities in disputed seas about 64.5 
 nautical miles off the coast of central Vietnam. 
 China moved the rig into the area on March 7, sparking 
 verbal sparring between Hanoi and its huge northern neighbour. 
 The Chinese oil official said he was not sure if the Kan Tan 
 III had already left the disputed waters between China's 
 tropical Hainan Island and Vietnam's central coast, but said the 
 rig's withdrawal was assured. 
 "Since the work is finished, why would it not leave?" he 
 said, adding that the exact timing of the departure would be 
 decided by local oil officials. 
 "Implementation is up to the lower levels," he said. 
 Vietnamese naval officers said China had already moved the 
 rig away from the area, but gave few details. 
 "Yes, it's been moved," said an officer at the headquarters 
 for Vietnam's Naval Operations in the northern port town of 
 Haiphong. He declined to elaborate. 
 China and Vietnam, which fought a brief but bloody border 
 war in 1979 and clashed at sea in the 1980s, have agreed to hold 
 expert-level negotiations next week to resolve the dispute over 
 sovereignty of the potentially resource-rich area. 
 Talks would be held in Beijing on April 9, Vietnamese 
 Foreign Ministry spokesman Tran Quang Hoan said on Thursday. 
 A government official in Hanoi said on Friday he understood 
 that China moved the Kan Tan III on April 1 and that the rig was 
 now back in what Vietnam considers Chinese waters. 
 Hanoi and Beijing still had problems to resolve, despite its 
 departure, said the official, who declined to be identified. 
 "Still...there might be some differences in the positions 
 of the two sides. We still have some topics to discuss," he 
 said, citing as a potential issue the fact that the rig had 
 spent time in waters claimed by Vietnam. 
 Foreign Ministry spokesman Hoan said the goal of the Beijing 
 meeting would be to clarify that the area in dispute was within 
 Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. 
 China has dismissed Vietnam's claim to the area and has 
 declared the operations of its rig to be beyond criticism, but 
 President Jiang Zemin on Friday had friendly words for visiting 
 Vietnamese Interior Minister Le Minh Huong. 
 China and Vietnam had a long history of friendship and 
 expanding cooperation and furthering ties was in the intersts of 
 both, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Jiang as saying. 
 The exploration row is the latest in a long series of 
 territorial disputes, ideological differences and historical 
 grievances to strain Sino-Vietnamese socialist solidarity. 
 The potential mineral riches of territory contested by Hanoi 
 and Beijing have been a constant threat to recent efforts by 
 both sides to boost ties. Both nations claim parts of the Tonkin 
 Gulf and the Paracel and Spratly island chains.