(VOVworld) – US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at a seminar on the Vietnam war called the Vietnam War Summit in Texas on Thursday.
He said the war produced a lesson of moving on from the past to the future, as evidenced by the US and Vietnam’s efforts to reconcile, particularly Vietnam’s good will and cooperation in the search for American servicemen missing in action. Mr. Kerry said: “It also tells you something quite remarkable about the extraordinary openness of the Vietnamese people, who helped us search for the remains of our fallen troops. Even the majority of theirs, a million strong, probably, would never be found. The Vietnamese did so because they wanted also to move beyond the war. And the tragedy of what happened in Vietnam has to be a constant reminder of the capacity to make mistakes, the capacity to see things in the wrong lens, and ultimately to miss the constant reminder of the horror and the suffering that war inflicts.”
Mr. Kerry said that after 20 years of normalization US-Vietnam relations have changed for the better. The two countries have discussed their differences frankly, regularly, and effectively: “Because so many Vietnamese and Americans themselves refused to let out past, to find another future, Vietnam, a former adversary, is now a partner, with whom we have developed increasingly warm personal and national ties. That is our shared legacy and it’s one that I hope will continue to strengthen in the years to come.”
The Vietnam War Summit took place on the 41st anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war and prior to President Obama’s visit to Vietnam in late May. The seminar drew approximately 1,000 delegates, including American veterans, politicians, former war correspondents, and Vietnam war researchers.