Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 8, 1994 TAG: 9402080092
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HANOI, VIETNAM LENGTH: Medium
U.S. officials said the ceremony at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport had been planned weeks before the lifting of the embargo and that the timing was a coincidence. There have been similar ceremonies about every two months.
Just the same, this one took on added significance since President Clinton had made the lifting of the embargo contingent on Hanoi's cooperation and progress in the fullest possible accounting of MIAs.
U.S. veterans groups and families of MIAs had strongly opposed the end of the embargo, saying the United States would lose its leverage in forcing Vietnam to cooperate in accounting for the 2,238 American MIAs.
But the United States withheld some carrots, the biggest of which is the restoration of diplomatic ties, broken when communist North Vietnam defeated U.S.-backed South Vietnam in April 1975.
The United States also did not immediately grant Vietnam "most favored nation" trade status, which would lower tariffs on Vietnamese imports to the United States and make them more competitive in the American market.
Vietnam is now pushing for diplomatic recognition. Just after Clinton announced the end of the economic sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai pledged Vietnam would continue cooperating in trying to resolve MIA cases.
Lt. Col. John Cray, the U.S. Army officer who heads the MIA office in Hanoi, said the lifting of the embargo would help his mission.
"I believe that the Vietnamese cooperation is at a peak right now," he said.
Vietnam and the United States will begin another major search operation Feb. 26 involving more than 100 American specialists.
The Vietnamese turned over 35 sets of remains to the United States in 1992 and 67 sets last year. Since the end of the war, Vietnam has returned 584 sets of remains, but thus far only 281 have been identified as Americans.
The remains handed over Monday were either excavated by American specialists or turned over to Vietnamese authorities by villagers in December and January during the biggest joint search effort since the end of the war.
The operation was observed by top U.S. officials in what Western diplomats said was a move by the Clinton administration to set the stage for ending the embargo based on testimony from credible witnesses that Vietnam was cooperating.
by CNB