From: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Nhan Tran)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: NEWS/VN: Hanoi optimistic that US will lift embargo
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:57:04 GMT
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com


11/05

VIETNAM OPTIMISTIC CLINTON WILL LIFT EMBARGO

    By Kathleen Callo
    HANOI, Nov 5, Reuter - Vietnam is optimistic U.S. president-elect Bill
Clinton will lift Washington's trade embargo against Hanoi and normalise
relations, Deputy Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said on Thursday.
    Khai told a news conference Vietnam expected Clinton to continue 
cooperation accelerated by the administration of George Bush and Hanoi to 
resolve the fate of American servicemen missing from the Vietnam War.
    "I believe the next president, Mr Bill Clinton, will certainly continue the
U.S. cooperation with Vietnam on questions of humanitarian concern," Khai said
in response to a question.
    "We believe he will also proceed with the normalisation process with
Vietnam, proceeding from the common interest of the two peoples in this regard
and for the sake of peace, stability and cooperation in the region as well as
the whole world."
    Khai said Vietnam was now pursuing an open-door foreign policy and wanted
friendly relations with all countries.
    "The United States is a major power with an important role in the world.
Vietnam is prepared to establish and entertain relations of equality, mutual
respect and mutual benefit with that country," he told reporters.
    Asked about rumours that Bush might ease or lift the embargo before his 
term ends in January, Khai avoided a direct reply.
    "As to when the embargo will be lifted and relations normalised between the
two countries, the answer to that question rests with the U.S. leadership," he
said.
    Khai said European state officials and businessmen expressed support during
his trip to Brussels and Paris last month for market-oriented reforms that have
made Vietnam the world's third largest rice exporter.
    "A number of European businessmen stressed the anachronistic and absurd
character of the continued U.S. embargo against Vietnam," he said.
    Khai said Belgium signed an agreement during his visit to forgive $23
million in Vietnamese debt.
    France agreed to increase 1992 aid to Vietnam by 50 million francs ($9.8
million) to 180 million francs ($35.2 million).
    A U.S. army general heading a search for remains of or clues to Americans
missing since the war flew by helicopter on Thursday to a remote mountainside
where an F-4 Phantom fighter crashed in 1965.
    Major-General Thomas Needham went to check on progress by U.S. experts who
have been searching there for two weeks for evidence concerning the two air
force men who were in the plane when it was shot down early in the war, Hanoi
authorities said.
    The 13 military men and civilians camped out near Suoi Pai village in Son 
La province are among 63 U.S. experts who began a month-long investigation on
October 23.
    Washington has made Vietnamese cooperation in accounting for missing
Americans a precondition for normalising relations and lifting the trade
embargo.
    The joint search is the 20th carried out by U.S. experts and Vietnam since
1988.
    Rumours that Americans were secretly being held in Indochina have helped
block normalisation of U.S.-Vietnamese relations.
    U.S. experts who have worked on the issue for years say evidence including
testimony from villagers and former Viet Cong prison guards has convinced them
American servicemen listed by Washington as "presumed dead but unaccounted for"
are in fact dead.
    But they say that message rarely seems to reach Washington, where
politicians have avoided the emotive issue.