Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Albright: Vietnam MIAs still top priority

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

Tuesday, September 7, 1999

Albright: Vietnam MIAs still top priority
Economic issues also important, secretary of state says during 2-day visit to country
By Paul Alexander
Associated Press

   HANOI, Vietnam - When it comes to Vietnam, trade and economic issues are important, but U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made it clear Monday that accounting for American MIAs is still the top priority.
   Albright, making a two-day stopover en route to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in New Zealand, began her news conference in Hanoi by expressing gratitude for Vietnamese cooperation in tracking down and recovering the remains of U.S. soldiers.
   On Tuesday, she will witness a repatriation ceremony for the remains of four soldiers that were uncovered during the most recent of the five joint U.S.-Vietnam digs that are held each year.
   "This issue remains paramount to the United States," Albright said.
   Cooperation on the MIA issue is one of the bright spots in the relationship between Washington and Hanoi that has developed since normalization of relations began in 1995, 20 years after the end of the Vietnam war.
   In addition to excavating suspected plane crash or battle sites, U.S. officials have been providing their Vietnamese counterparts with access to U.S. military records to help track down the remains of the estimated 200,000 Vietnamese MIAs.
   Vietnam's assistance has led directly to steady progress in other areas, particularly as the poor communist country seeks to develop its economy. Caught in the fallout from the Asian financial crisis, Vietnam's economic reforms have slowed to a crawl in the last two years.
   Officials have been moving quickly in recent months to conclude a bilateral trade agreement between Vietnam and the United States that is expected to mean hundreds of millions of dollars in trade and investment in the Southeast Asian country and possibly paving the way for its accession to the World Trade Organization.
   U.S. officials traveling with Albright said negotiators also were on the verge of a number of other agreements, including export-import bank assistance, aviation code-sharing, and cooperation in science and technology.
   She said she also had raised contentious human rights issues, pressing the need for improvements in Vietnam's labor rights, media freedom, freedom of assembly, treatment of dissidents and religious freedom.
   In turn, Vietnamese reporters grilled Albright about America's human-rights record, raising the investigation into the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, U.S. involvement in Kosovo and the status of American Indians.
   The Vietnamese also raised the issue of Agent Orange - the toxic defoliant that was widely used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam war - and which has been blamed for a number of illnesses and birth defects, U.S. officials said.

| Talk about this story | Next Story | Home |