`Tangible progress' made in Vietnam MIA

`Tangible progress' made in Vietnam MIA

WASHINGTON (AFP): Vietnam has made "tangible progress" to determine the fate of missing U.S. soldiers and prisoners of war in recent months, President Bill Clinton said in a letter to congress Wednesday.

Among the advances Clinton cited in a report to Congress, he said Vietnam had taken action to reduce the number of U.S. individuals involved in the "last known alive discrepancy cases" in Vietnam from 73 to 55.

Vietnam has opened access to sensitive military areas in Cam Ranh Bay and Haiphong Harbor.

Vietnam has also stepped up efforts to seek out more information on documents scattered among various Vietnamese government agencies.

And Vietnam has opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City dedicated to recovering the remains of U.S. personnel who died in the south and encourage private citizens to turn over remains.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives passed a non-binding voice vote calling on the administration to keep the focus of the U.S. liaison office opened earlier this year in Vietnam on the missing U.S. personnel question.

The representatives said the main function of the office should be to work toward learning the fate of the personnel.

When Clinton made his Feb. 3 decision to lift the 19-year embargo against the Vietnamese, he said it was in part based on evidence the Vietnamese were moving to resolve the fate of 2,238 U.S. personnel listed as missing in action.

But he said continued progress in normalizing relations was predicated on continued efforts to settle the POW-MIA question. At the time, the move drew the scorn of many veterans' groups and missing soldiers' families that wanted to keep the embargo in place to pressure Vietnam for more cooperation.

Clinton said in his letter that "despite this tangible progress, I believe there are additional steps Vietnam could take to help achieve the fullest possible accounting..."

Among those categories, Clinton said the Vietnamese should provide a comprehensive report on the 84 special remains cases pending and providing additional documents.

Clinton's list also included Vietnam's giving the government of neighboring Laos advance notification of Vietnamese witnesses who would be asked to travel to Laos for U.S.-Vietnamese-Laotian trilateral investigations.