BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held talks with a top Vietnamese envoy and said the two countries should repair strained relations, state media reported.

Xi met Le Hong Anh, a member of Vietnam’s Communist Party politburo, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. It described him as being sent by the head of the country’s Communist Party.

China and Vietnam, once close ideological allies, are locked in a bitter dispute over disputed waters and island chains in the South China Sea.

“A neighbour cannot be moved away and it is in the common interests of both sides to be friendly to each other,” Xi said during the meeting, according to Xinhua’s brief dispatch.

In May Beijing moved a deep-sea oil rig into waters that Hanoi claims, sparking deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam and triggering a high-seas standoff around the rig.

China in June dispatched State Councillor Yang Jiechi, its top foreign policy official, to meet Vietnamese officials in Hanoi though the two sides made no progress in easing tensions.

Beijing removed the rig in July, claiming its mission was successfully completed.

Xi, who is separately head of China’s Communist Party, also stressed that the two nations are not only close neighbours but also socialist countries, Xinhua said.

Anh arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a two-day stay.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2014