U.S. Delegation in Hanoi to Discuss Ties : Diplomacy: Americans are ready to discuss a four-phase plan for normalizing relations.

Retired U.S. Gen. John W. Vessey and an American delegation arrived here Friday for talks with Vietnamese officials on obstacles to normalizing relations between Hanoi and Washington.

Vessey came officially to discuss with Hanoi officials the fate of American soldiers missing from the Vietnam War. But he said he would also discuss a recently announced four-phase U.S. plan for normalizing relations with Vietnam.

According to U.S. statistics, 2,353 servicemen disappeared in Indochina during the war, including 1,719 in Vietnam. Vietnam has turned over 291 sets of remains thought to be those of MIAs.

The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since the war, which ended in 1975, and Washington has led a crippling trade embargo against Vietnam.

Washington’s plan for a gradual resumption of ties includes resolution of the MIA issue, the release from re-education camps of former South Vietnamese officials and acceptance of a U.N.-brokered peace plan for Cambodia.

Hanoi, the main backer of the Phnom Penh government, has said normalization with Washington should be achieved without conditions and that it would facilitate a Cambodian solution.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, before his first meeting with Vessey, said Friday that talks “will be difficult because the Americans have conditions on Cambodia that we cannot satisfy.”

The foreign minister said Hanoi cannot force Phnom Penh leaders to accept “things they don’t want to accept.”

The Phnom Penh government and Hanoi, seeking assurances against a return to power by the Communist Khmer Rouge, have both rejected the proposal that the Cambodian government army be dismantled under the peace plan.

The Khmer Rouge, now the strongest of three resistance factions fighting a guerrilla war in western Cambodia, is held responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians during its 1975-1978 rule in Cambodia before being ousted by Vietnamese invasion forces in January, 1979.

Vessey, who was made a special envoy by President Ronald Reagan, is on his third visit to Hanoi, where he is to spend two days. He is accompanied by Defense and State department representatives and the director of a private group for families of missing servicemen.

The Cambodian peace plan forged by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council spells out a central role for the world body, supervising a cease-fire, disarmament and the halting of foreign military aid to the warring factions while administering Cambodia until elections can be held.

A four-page document outlining the U.S. plan says Vietnam has to persuade its Cambodian allies to back the U.N. plan, which would disarm Phnom Penh’s army and the guerrillas fighting against it before holding elections.

The document says Washington will not normalize relations until the U.N. plan has been carried out, elections held and a new Cambodian national assembly formed.

Vietnam would also have to release all remaining detainees linked to the former U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government. They would be eligible for emigration to the United States.

One Western diplomat said Hanoi was surprised to see that the plan included conditions Washington never publicly raised before.

“The Vietnamese position seems to be very, very hard,” he said. “They underlined many times they were ready to have constructive discussions with the Americans. But there were certain limits beyond which the Vietnamese could not go.”

Another Western diplomat said it seems unfair to hold Vietnam responsible for an eventual agreement to the U.N. plan by Cambodia’s warring factions.

“That’s something no country can guarantee,” he said.