U.S. Navy will make port call in Vietnam

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http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031011-113020-4505r.htm

U.S. Navy will make port call in Vietnam
By Sharon Behn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

HONOLULU — The first U.S. Navy vessel to dock in Vietnam in almost 30 years is due to arrive there on a landmark port call in November, according to a military source and a former U.S. ambassador.
The military contact is the first since the United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, withdrawing from a war that cost the United States more than 58,000 lives and left an estimated 1.3 million to 3 million North and South Vietnamese dead. There are an estimated 1,200 American POW/MIAs still unaccounted for.

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Bilateral ties between the United States and Vietnam have been improving slowly since the former foes resumed diplomatic relations in 1995. A bilateral trade agreement was signed in 2000, and a deal to resume commercial flights between the two countries was signed on Thursday.

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Vietnamese Defense Minister Pham Van Tra is due to visit the United States later this year, Mr. Salmon and the military source both said. It will be the first visit by a Vietnamese defense minister since the end of the Vietnam War. Mr. Tra's visit takes place after Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien's recent trip to the United States.

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A Vietnamese defense minister in Washington?!?! Commercial flights starting soon? Very interesting...