(VOVoworld) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday begins an official 2-day visit to Vietnam before leaving for Cambodia for a series of major ASEAN meetings. This is her 3rd visit to Vietnam in the past 3 years. Clinton is accompanied by a delegation of US officials and business leaders.
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In the afternoon, Clinton held talks with Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. Both ministers expressed their satisfaction at the achievements made in bilateral ties. They said they believe that the Vietnam-US relationship will develop further in the near future, especially in economics, trade, science and technology, education and training. Both sides also discussed cooperative measures in humanitarian issues and dealing with the consequences of the war. The US will continue to support projects that remove unexploded ordnance, decontaminate areas poisoned by Agent Orange/dioxin and assist Vietnamese AO victims. Both sides agreed to continue with their frank, but constructive dialogue on several pending issues. They agreed to step up cooperation in multilateral forums and work together for common and lasting benefits of each other. Both leaders exchanged views on ways to maintain peace, stability, cooperation and safe shipping lanes in the East Sea. They said all territorial disputes in the East Sea should be solved by peaceful means on the basis of international laws, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2002 Declaration of Conduct of Parties (DOC) signed by China and ASEAN.
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After their talks, the two diplomats met with reporters. Expressing her pleasure to return to Vietnam, Clinton said this is an opportunity to reconfirm the win-win cooperation between the US and Vietnam: “Vietnam has emerged as a leader in the lower Mekong region and in South East Asia and the US greatly appreciates Vietnam’s contributions to a collaborative diplomatic resolution of disputes and a reduction of tensions in the South China Sea, and we look to ASEAN to make rapid progress with china towards an effective code of conduct in order to ensure that as challenges arise they are managed and resolved peacefully through a consensual process in accordance with established principles of international law.”
Ms. Clinton told reporters about the concrete measures in hand to address the consequences of the war: “We remain concerned about and we have increased our financial commitment to deal with it, and the minister and I discussed consulting on having a long term plan, and then with respect to missing an action accounting, the US greatly appreciates Vietnam’s cooperation over more than 2 decades in our efforts to account for missing US personnel and we want to do more to help Vietnam recover their missing as well so there’s a lot for us to be doing and we want to be as focused in the follow up as possible.”
Later on, the US Secretary of State attended a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Fulbright scholarships at Hanoi University of Foreign Trade, where more than 600 alumni were present. The Fulbright Scholarship program was founded by US Senator William Fulbright in 1945 to strengthen understanding between America and other counties through education and cultural exchanges.