HANOI, Sept 11 (AFP) - A European Parliament delegation said Wednesday the Vietnamese government had prevented it from meeting with detained religious leaders and warned it could affect aid disbursements to the communist nation.
The six-member team, led by German MEP Hartmut Nassauer, said the decision by Hanoi to deny access to two clergyman had forced them to drop plans for a series of bilateral meetings with the authorities.
"We had specifically asked to meet with religious leaders as demanded by the European Parliament resolution in July and October last year," Nassauer told reporters.
"We had the intention of meeting with a detained representative of the Catholic Church and a detained representative of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV).
"Unfortunately the Vietnamese authorities refused to grant authorisation for these contacts. We have therefore abstained from meeting a representative of the official Vietnam Buddhist Church."
On Tuesday, Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said the MEPs had been denied access to Thich Quang Do, deputy head of the outlawed UBCV, because he was under house arrest.
The government also refused the delegates a meeting with Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest who was jailed for 15 years in October last year for "harming national unity".
Nassauer said the bilateral visit was instead reduced to a meeting on Sunday with members of Vietnam's parliament or National Assembly, often derided for being a Communist Party rubber-stamp.
He added that after the delegation returned to Europe on September 14, the parliament would consider the European Commission's budget for Vietnam for 2003 in light of the mission's results.
The European People's Party member added: "We will keep pressure on the human rights situation in Vietnam and there will parliament initiatives which we will decide on when we are back in Europe."