Ex-South Vietnamese leader returns home

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Ex-South Vietnamese leader returns home

Former exiled South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky returned Wednesday to the communist country he fled nearly three decades ago, marking his first homecoming trip since the Vietnam War ended.

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Former exiled South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky returned Wednesday to the communist country he fled nearly three decades ago, marking his first homecoming trip since the Vietnam War ended.

Ky, 73, of Hacienda Heights, Calif., arrived in Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport with his wife, daughter and three others, becoming one of the most well-known political figures from the former South Vietnamese government to come back.

Vietnam, which issued tourist visas for the couple, has said it welcomes his decision "to come back to the homeland ... after many years apart."

Prior to his return, which coincides with Tet Lunar New Year festivities, Ky, a long-standing critic of the Communist leadership in Hanoi, said in interviews that he wants to bring a message of reconciliation on his trip.

"The war ended 30 years ago, but it still divides us into two camps. So I want to put aside the past hatred, and just sit together and talk to one another face to face," he told Radio Free Asia. "And I believe if everybody loves the country and loves its people, we will sit together as one."

Source: Agencies

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