Hanoi Offers to Resolve MIA Issue if U.S. Drops Its ‘Hostile Policy’

Vietnam presented a visiting American delegation Wednesday with a new plan for resolving the issue of American servicemen missing in action in Vietnam but said it could be implemented only if Washington drops its “hostile policy” toward Hanoi.

“If the U.S. wants to cooperate with us, they can find many remains,” Vice Foreign Minister Hoang Bich Son told reporters after a two-hour meeting in the government guest house at which the plan was presented to the Americans.

The U.S. delegation, led by National Security Council member Richard K. Childress and Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director of the National League of Families of Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, refused to comment on the session.

The U.S. delegation flew to Hanoi on Wednesday from Vientiane, capital of Laos, and was to meet with Vietnam’s acting foreign minister, Vo Dong Giang, before leaving today. Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach is abroad.

2-Year Plan

Son declined to reveal details of the new MIA plan, but he said it is designed to resolve within two years the fate of Americans missing in the Indochina war. Of the 2,464 American servicemen and civilians still listed as missing, 1,375 disappeared in Vietnam and most of the rest in Laos and Cambodia.

Son said the plan will not succeed without changes in Washington’s policy toward Hanoi, including the removal of Vietnam from the U.S. “enemies list” and the lifting of a trade embargo.

The United States has said it will not establish diplomatic ties with Hanoi until the Vietnamese end their occupation of Cambodia and that it also is sticking with an embargo on aid and trade with its former enemy.

Documents, Equipment

Son also complained that Washington has provided “very few” documents to Vietnam or lent it the sophisticated equipment needed to help locate MIA remains.

Improved relations are required to enlist the help of the Vietnamese people, whose assistance is needed to pinpoint the locations of remains, he said.

“As you can see, our people think the U.S. has a hostile policy and will not cooperate with us (Hanoi),” Son said. “We have to rely on discovering every name by the people.”

Vietnam has turned over the remains of 128 servicemen since 1974. American authorities suspect it has information on the locations of hundreds more.