Vietnamese fly home to face uncertainty on US resettlement

Vietnam has moved to back a troubled US resettlement plan for boat people, but warns that 'concrete steps' must still be hammered out - a blow to volunteers now returning home on promises from Washington.

The Foreign Ministry statement came as Vietnam yesterday received its 50,000th volunteer returnee from Hong Kong on board one of two flights.

As many as 6,000 boat people have volunteered to go back, seeking screening under the State Department's Resettlement Opportunity for Vietnamese Returnees.

The scheme allows them to claim wartime links, religious reasons or a fear of persecution to obtain US residency, but gives Washington wide discretion regarding whom it selects.

And no firm agreement has yet been reached between Hanoi and Washington on arrangements to allow US interviewers into Vietnam - despite the US formally touting the deal in Hong Kong's camps in April.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman commented that Vietnam was ready to create 'favourable conditions' for returnees from Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to leave the country through normal channels.

'On the basis of such principles, the authorities of Vietnam and the US are trying to exchange ideas to seek a reasonable mechanism before coming to concrete steps,' the spokesman said in a statement to the South China Morning Post.