Philippines says Vietnam fired at plane
MANILA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The Philippines on Thursday
accused Vietnamese troops of shooting at a Philippine aircraft
over the disputed Spratly Islands and said it had expressed its
``greatest concern'' to Hanoi.
Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said the Philippine Air
Force plane was investigating a three-storey concrete facility
being built by Vietnam on a reef claimed by the two countries
when it was shot at on October 13. The plane was not hit.
He said the Philippine foreign ministry protested against the
shooting and the expansion of the Vietnamese facility on the reef
in a formal note handed to Vietnam's ambassador in Manila,
Nguyen Thac Dinh, on Wednesday.
``We view with the greatest concern these recent acts of
Vietnam,'' Siazon said in a statement.
``These acts, particularly the firing of shots at the Philippine
aircraft, are a clear assailment of the letter and spirit of various
regional, multilateral and regional agreements and declarations
entered into by both the Philippine and Vietnamese
governments,'' he said.
In Hanoi, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry did not comment on the
incident except to issue a statement saying the country had full
sovereignty over the Spratlys but that claimants there should
exercise restraint.
``...related parties should be self-restrained and not do anything
that might cause the situation to be more complicated and not
use or threaten to use force...,'' it said.
Philippine foreign ministry officials earlier said two Philippine
planes were flying over the area and both were shot at, but the
ministry clarified only one aircraft was involved.
Siazon said the plane was shot at by Vietnamese troops while
trying to get a closer look at the ``soon-to-be-complete
facility.''
Siazon said the shooting took place about the same time as
officials of the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) were in Bangkok to discuss a proposed code of
conduct aimed at preventing accidental conflicts in the Spratlys.
The Spratlys are a cluster of nearly 200 largely barren isles,
reefs and rocky outcrops in the South China sea that are
claimed wholly or in part by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. They are believed to
potentially rich in oil and natural gas.
The protest was the second filed by Manila with Hanoi in the
past two weeks over the Spratlys. The earlier protest was
against what Manila called similar expansion of Vietnamese
facilities on two other reefs claimed by both countries.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Reuters - October 28, 1999.
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