Vietnam dismisses China's accounts of test flights

(Associated Press)

January 12, 2016 - 7:45pm

In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016 photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, people pose for a group photo together after landing at the airfield on the Spratly Islands, also known as Nansha Islands in Chinese, of the South China Sea. A pair of Chinese civilian jet airliners landed at the newly created island in a disputed section of the South China Sea in a test to see whether its airstrip was up to standard, state media reported Thursday, Jan. 7. The China Daily newspaper said the two planes on Wednesday made the two-hour flight to Fiery Cross Reef from Haikou on the southern island province of Hainan. Xing Guangli/Xinhua via AP

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam has dismissed China's accounts of its test flights to an island in disputed waters, saying it received no information of the flights as claimed by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told the media Monday that China's three test flights to the Fiery Cross Reefs earlier this month were state aviation activities and had no restrictions by international law, but that it had informed Vietnamese authority of them.

Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh rejected Hong's statement as a "wrong position," saying Vietnamese authorities did not receive any information from China. He says in a statement posted on the ministry's website late Tuesday that China's test flights had affected security and aviation safety in the South China Sea.

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