HANOI, May 23 (Xinhua) -- President of the United States Barack Obama on Monday announced the United States is lifting a decades-long arms embargo on Vietnam.
Obama made the announcement at a press conference co-chaired with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in Vietnam's capital Hanoi during his ongoing visit to the country.
While answering questions from media at the conference, Obama also made it clear that the United States may sell weapons to Vietnam under a case-by-case basis. The United States "will continue to engage on case by case evaluation to do so (sell weapons)," he said.
The Vietnamese president, for his part, said that "Vietnam welcomes U.S. decision to completely lift arms embargo on Vietnam."
The United States imposed an arms embargo on communist-ruled north Vietnam in 1964, while in 1984, the United States included Vietnam on the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list of countries that were denied licenses to acquire defense articles and defense services.
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