Emergency talks between Hanoi and Beijing are likely to go ahead this week in a bid to solve tensions over Chinese exploration off Vietnam's coast.
A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed last night that China had accepted Vietnam's request for urgent talks over the placement of the Kan Tan III oil rig.
A statement indicated Hanoi would not be budging from a call for an immediate end to Kan Tan's exploration work 104 kilometres off the Vietnamese coast.
'Our demand is that the Chinese must withdraw the . . . drilling platform from the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf of Vietnam,' the spokesman said.
Vietnamese sources said border and maritime legal experts from both sides would be at the talks.
'Don't expect any shifts and roll-backs on our side. Our position on this is absolutely fixed,' one expert said. 'The rig has to go and we think China knows that.' Vietnam insists its stance is based on a 1982 United Nations International Law of the Sea that governs a country's right to a 200-nautical-mile economic zone.
