U.S. offers to take Vietnam refugees

An elderly hilltribe woman sits looking out from her wooden house in Vietnam's central highland province of Gia Lai

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The United States is ready to grant asylum to around 1,000 refugees who say they have fled persecution in Vietnam for Cambodia, in a move unlikely to find favor with Hanoi.

Kent Wiedemann, U.S. ambassador in Phnom Penh, told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that the United States was willing to take the ethnic minority refugees if Cambodia agreed.

Hanoi has so far insisted the refugees be returned. When America gave asylum to 38 hill tribe refugees who had fled to Cambodia last year, Hanoi denounced the move, accusing Washington of interfering in its internal affairs and encouraging illegal border crossing and regional instability.

Sources in Cambodia's remote northeastern Mondulkiri province said the Vietnamese hilltribe people, who fled to Cambodia over the past year, were due to be moved to Phnom Penh within days because of fears they could be made to return to Vietnam.

Last Friday the U.N. refugee agency pulled out of a deal with Hanoi and Phnom Penh to return the refugees to Vietnam, citing alleged coercion and concerns for their safety once they were sent back.

Cambodia has been caught in the middle of the refugee row, keen not to offend the United States but unwilling to spark a diplomatic rift with its big eastern neighbor, Vietnam.

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Human rights groups have accused Cambodian authorities of colluding with the Vietnamese to try to force asylum seekers back across the border, saying more than 500 have been forcibly deported.

Over 1,000 ethnic minority refugees fled Vietnam's Central Highlands to Cambodia in the past year after Hanoi sent troops to quash hilltribe protests over land rights and religious freedom.