Vietnam, United States evaluate MIA progress

Vietnam, United States evaluate MIA progress

HANOI (Reuter): Top U.S. and Vietnamese officials yesterday
reviewed progress in determining the fate of U.S. airmen and
soldiers missing since the Vietnam War, an issue crucial to
improving links between the two countries.

The outcome could dictate the pace at which U.S. President
Bill Clinton decides to establish diplomatic relations with
Hanoi.

U.S. delegation leader Hershel Gober, deputy secretary of
veterans affairs, rejected suggestions that accounting for the
2,205 servicemen still listed as missing in action (MIA) in the
war, which ended 20 years ago, was a dead issue.

"America is a country that does not like to leave its dead
warriors on the battlefield," Gober told reporters.

"As full as possible an accounting, as President Clinton said,
is very important to us. It's very important to the families that
they have the remains of their loved ones back," he said before
talks began.

Gober said the mission would assess progress on the issue of
prisoners of war (POWs) and MIAs, thank Vietnam for its
cooperation "and urge them to continue with this very important
issue to America".

The United States is trying to determine the fate of 1,619
MIAs in Vietnam, where the U.S. armed forces backed the losing
Saigon regime in a war that ended with a communist victory in
1975.

There are 501 MIA cases in Laos, 77 in Cambodia and eight in
southern China.

All are presumed dead, but the U.S. military does not close
the file on them until the circumstances of death have been
proved and remains found. Only 378 Americans have been fully
accounted for since the end of the war.

Gober, Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord and Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs, James Wold
received a U.S. military briefing on searches for MIA remains.

They then went into formal talks with a Vietnamese delegation
led by Le Mai, deputy minister of foreign affairs in charge of
relations with the United States.

In an indication of the importance Hanoi attaches to the
mission, the U.S. officials are due to meet Vietnam's most senior
official, Communist Party General-Secretary Do Muoi, before
leaving tomorrow to continue an Asian tour.

Clinton has said concrete progress on the MIA issue will help
determine the pace of normalization of ties.

He lifted an economic embargo against Hanoi last year and the
two governments established formal relations in January, setting
up diplomatic liaison offices in each capital.

Gober declined comment on the climate in Washington on
speeding up normalization, saying only: "That's a decision the
president will have to make."

Advocates of full diplomatic relations between Hanoi and
Washington want Clinton to act before the 1996 U.S. presidential
election campaign primaries start late this year.