U.S. Hopeful of Vietnam Trade Pact : Asia: Albright, in Hanoi, says deal may be signed this weekend at the APEC forum in New Zealand.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, making a rare visit to Vietnam by a high-profile official of the United States, said Monday that a key trade agreement between the former adversaries has been put back on track after it appeared to have stalled because of opposition by old-line Communist leaders.

Speaking at a news conference after a day of talks with Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam and Communist Party leader Le Kha Phieu, Albright said she is hopeful that the pact--negotiated July 25--will be formally signed this weekend, when President Clinton and the Vietnamese leaders are scheduled to attend an Asia-Pacific economic conference in New Zealand.

Albright said the Vietnamese officials told her that they had overcome most of their doubts about the agreement, which is a required step before normal trade relations between Washington and Hanoi can resume, a quarter of a century after the Vietnam War ended. Vietnamese critics of the pact apparently believe that it requires economic reforms that would move Hanoi too far along the road to capitalism.

Reporters aboard Albright’s aircraft were told earlier Monday that it was unlikely Vietnam could clear away its “technical” obstacles by this weekend.

But at her news conference, Albright said, “I am hopeful for a signing in Auckland,” the New Zealand city where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will meet. “Prompt action is needed if this major opportunity is not to become a missed opportunity.”

The trade pact, which would offer Vietnam the same low tariffs enjoyed by all but half a dozen U.S. trading partners, has come to symbolize the evolution of the U.S.-Vietnamese relationship. One senior American official said the agreement “closes the loop on normalization” of relations between the two nations.

But Vietnam must carefully balance its ties with the United States and China, its giant neighbor to the north. While preparing to welcome Albright for her second visit in just over two years, the Vietnamese last month abruptly postponed indefinitely a planned visit by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

Despite the progress on the trade pact, Albright said she warned the Vietnamese leaders that Washington and Hanoi can never have truly cordial relations until Vietnam improves its human rights performance, especially by allowing the free exercise of religion and permitting labor unions to organize.

“Our relationship . . . can never be totally normal until the human rights situation is dealt with,” she said.

Washington’s repeated sermons on human rights clearly chafe Vietnamese sensitivities. The only two questions from Vietnamese at Albright’s news conference were actually lectures about such purported U.S. human rights violations as the Waco fire, the bombing of Kosovo and the treatment of Native Americans.

One questioner demanded: “Do you rank your standard higher than human rights in the world, or what?”

Albright replied: “This is not an American idea. It is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the United States supports.”

Albright praised Vietnam for its cooperation in resolving the cases of U.S. service members still missing from the war.

Before leaving Hanoi today for Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, she presided over a ceremony at which Vietnam turned over four sets of human remains thought to be those of U.S. service personnel. If tests to be performed at a military facility in Hawaii confirm the identities of the four, they will bring to a total of 533 the number of such remains identified since the end of the war. That would leave 2,050 names on the list of the missing.

U.S. officials emphasized that there has not been a single documented case of an American soldier held against his will in Vietnam since the general prisoner release in 1973.