PARIS: President Nixon’s peace plan call for the withdrawal of all non-South Viet-Namese troops from South Viet-Nam was rapidly knocked down by the North Viet-Namese and NLF delegations at today’s [May 16] session of the Peace talks.

A statement by delegation leader Xuan Thuy did not reject outright the eight points President Nixon announced on Wednesday which were tabled at the conference by US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who flew back from Washington last night. But he dismissed all talk of a mutual withdrawal as the “most ridiculous argument which I have already rejected many times.” Tran Buu Kiem, head of the Front team at the talks, said President Nixon’s insistence on the mutual withdrawal formula “was not more than posing conditions, which we have many times rejected, to the withdrawal of US troops”.

The Hanoi and NLF reaction did not appear to disturb Mr Lodge unduly. “The other side gave every indication they will consider these (Nixon) proposals,” he told newsmen and described the atmosphere at the session as “very hard to characterise”. Both Mr Kiem and Mr Thuy avoided complete rejection of the latest American proposals. Mr Lodge and South Viet-Namese Ambassador Pham Dang Lam announced they considered at least some of the NLF programme worth talking about. — Agency

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019