U.S. and Vietnam may open mission this year

U.S. and Vietnam may open mission this year

HANOI (Reuter): Vietnam repeated yesterday its hopes that U.S. and Vietnamese diplomatic missions would open in the two capitals this year, but a U.S. official said no schedule had been agreed.

Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam met U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Washington this week and "expressed the hope that the liaison offices will be established before the end of this year...," the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

But a U.S. official in Hanoi said the timing was hard to call because no agreement had been reached on the future of diplomatic premises seized at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

"There has been some development, we've solved a number of issues and we're moving closer together," U.S. diplomat Chris Runckel said.

"But we have not yet completely solved the diplomatic properties issue or agreed on a date for the opening of liaison offices."

The two governments are trying to sort out the future of 22 U.S. government buildings occupied by Vietnamese -- 19 of them in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon -- and of the former South Vietnamese embassy in Washington.

Claims involving private property dating back to the war appear a less contentious issue as they move towards opening liaison offices in a step toward exchanging full embassies.

When Washington lifted a U.S. economic embargo against Hanoi last February, the two governments said they intended to open their first diplomatic missions in each other's capital since the war. They exchanged letters in May agreeing to the move.

Office

Despite heavy demand for quality housing and office space, U.S. officials have found an office building and a residence for their head of mission and are refurbishing them.

Cam told Reuters late last month there were no political reasons for delays in opening the offices, and "everything now depends on how long the renovation and internal decoration take".

A key issue for the United States is determining the fate of over 2,000 U.S. airmen and soldiers still listed as missing in action (MIA) from the war.

U.S. President Bill Clinton has said progress on the MIA issue will determine the pace of normalization of relations with Hanoi, which several U.S. MIA pressure groups are trying to prevent.

The National Alliance of Families -- which believes Hanoi held U.S. prisoners after 1973, when both governments said it freed all its war prisoners -- said last month it was working hard to slow down the opening of liaison offices.

Joint Vietnamese-U.S. teams started the latest field search for MIA remains last Saturday.