#4
BBC Monitoring
Russia to transfer Cam Ranh navy base to Vietnam by 6 May

Moscow, 11 April: The Russian naval base in Cam Ranh will be transferred to Vietnam before 6 May, Chief-of-Staff of the Russian navy Adm Viktor Kravchenko said on Thursday [11 April]. The deadline is final, it was fixed at the final round of Russian-Vietnamese consultations in Hanoi on Tuesday, Kravchenko told Interfax-Military News Agency.

The last Il-76 Candid plane of the Russian naval aviation will leave the base on 6 May. It will carry the last Russian representatives of the base personnel. "The Sakhalin vessel that is now heading for Cam Ranh will leave the base this month carrying the last load of the base's equipment and property," Kravchenko said. The transfer ceremony will involve the Vietnamese deputy defence minister, while Russia is likely to be represented by Pacific Fleet Commander Vice-Adm Viktor Fedorov.

Russia's pull-out does not mean that "ships of the Russian navy or naval aircraft will be unable to visit the Cam Ranh base as need be," Russian navy Commander Vladimir Kuroyedov earlier told Interfax-Military News Agency. "We will be able to use it as any other international port or airfield" on the basis of bilateral agreements at the level of foreign ministries or governments, he stressed. Kuroyedov refuted Western media reports claiming that Russian military specialists would remain at the Cam Ranh base after its official closure to maintain the facility in the interests of the Russian navy.

Asked to comment on the reasons behind Russia's withdrawal from Cam Ranh, the commander said that "one cannot be great and poor at the same time". "It is necessary to redistribute resources so that they would correspond to the activity of the navy. After the USSR collapsed, the Russian navy has fewer vessels, and its missions have changed. Economy should correspond to those missions, and they will be real and possible in that case," Kuroyedov stressed.

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