U.S., Vietnam Plan High-Level Talks Saturday
Secretary of State James A. Baker III arranged Thursday to meet this weekend with Vietnam’s foreign minister on topics including efforts to form a new government in Cambodia and to learn the fate of more than 2,400 Americans missing since the Vietnam War.
Baker’s 30-minute meeting Saturday with Nguyen Co Thach, who is also deputy prime minister, is the latest U.S. move toward improved relations with the former bitter foe.
“The secretary decided to take advantage of Minister Thach’s presence in New York to have this meeting,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said in a statement.
Tutwiler announced the meeting in New York where Baker was conferring with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. It will be the highest-level U.S. session with a Vietnamese official since the 1973 Paris peace talks paved the way for withdrawal of U.S. forces. The war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon.
About 1,700 Americans are unaccounted for in Vietnam; others are missing elsewhere in the area.
The U.S. policy of shunning Vietnam except for occasional inquiries about missing Americans was altered in July when Baker announced that the Bush Administration would open negotiations with Hanoi on settling the 11-year-old civil war in Cambodia.
Cambodia’s government has been heavily influenced by Vietnam, although it has shown signs of pursuing a more independent course.
The guerrillas and the Cambodian government have been negotiating over formation of a council to run the country until an election can be held.
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