Report: China, Vietnam agree on land border

Chinese and Vietnamese delegations met to discuss border issues.

(CNN) -- China and Vietnam have settled a lengthy border dispute nearly 30 years after a month-long war that left tens of thousands of people dead, state-run media reported.

The settlement of the dispute -- which covered the land border between the two countries -- came during a December 28-31 meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a joint statement issued by the two governments on Wednesday.

The deal settled the remaining issues from a 1999 China-Vietnam land boundary treaty.

Xinhua called the settlement "a major event of historical significance" in relations between the two countries.

A ceremony marking the agreement and building of land border markers will be held later, the news agency said.

The border dispute arose after China, which supported North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, invaded its southern neighbor in February 1979 -- two months after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ousted the pro-Beijing Pol Pot regime.

The 29-day incursion ended with the last Chinese troops leaving on March 19 -- and without having forced the Vietnamese out of Cambodia.

During the next two decades, both sides stationed hundreds of thousands of troops along the border until the 1999 treaty.

The two sides are still in disagreement over the Spratly islands, a chain in the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.