Hanoi to Speed Its Cambodia Pullout
Vietnam has stepped up its timetable for withdrawing from Cambodia, promising to pull out all its troops “by the end of 1989 or early 1990 at the latest,” the official Vietnam News Agency said Thursday.
Previously Vietnam had said its 100,000 troops would leave by the end of 1990.
The agency said Vietnam’s Communist Party leader Nguyen Van Linh made the promise Wednesday during talks at the Kremlin with his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
“Nguyen Van Linh stressed that this year Vietnam is withdrawing half of its remaining volunteer troops and their command from Cambodia, that the rest will be withdrawn by the end of 1989 or early 1990 at the latest,” the news agency said.
It quoted Linh as saying the schedule for the troop pullout would be further moved up if an “early solution is achieved,” the news agency said.
If confirmed, the new timetable should give a boost to peace talks scheduled to start Monday in Indonesia. The talks will bring together all the parties to the conflict for the first time.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December, 1978, and toppled the ruling Khmer Rouge Communists, who came to power in 1975 and unleashed a reign of terror.
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