CANADA REVIEWING TIES WITH VIETNAM AFTER EXECUTION

Canada said on Thursday it was formally reviewing its ties with
Vietnam and had scrapped the offer of some technical help after Hanoi
ignored pleas for clemency and executed a Canadian woman for smuggling
drugs.

"This unwarranted action by the Vietnamese government does not, and
cannot, allow for the continuation of 'business as usual' between our
countries," Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said in a statement.

"I have asked our ambassador to Vietnam, Cecile Latour, who is
currently in Canada, to stay here until we have reviewed all aspects
of our bilateral relations."

Axworthy and other Canadian officials were outraged that Vietnam
executed Nguyen Thi Hiep on Monday despite promising to look at
evidence that Ottawa said cast doubt on her conviction for smuggling
drugs.

Axworthy said he had asked Canadian officials to withdraw an offer to
provide training on the World Trade Organisation for Vietnamese
officials and would be writing to his counterpart in Hanoi to register
Ottawa's concerns.

He also said Canadian officials would not attend events sponsored by
the Vietnamese government this weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of
the end of the Vietnam war.

"The measures the government of Canada has taken express our utmost
condemnation of the Vietnamese government's action," said Raymond
Chan, Canada's secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific region.

Nguyen was arrested in April 1996 at Hanoi airport after customs
officials found 2.4 pounds (one kilogram) of heroin hidden in her
luggage. She was convicted in March 1997.

She was born in Vietnam but became a naturalised Canadian
citizen.

Trafficking as little as 3.3 ounces (100 grams) of heroin is
punishable in Vietnam by death or life imprisonment.

Vietnam has been identified by anti-drug agencies as an important post
in the heroin trafficking route from the Golden Triangle region
centred on Myanmar, Laos and parts of southwestern China and northern
Thailand.