
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 27, 1994                   TAG: 9405270105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HANOI, VIETNAM                                 LENGTH: Medium

U.S., VIETNAM TO CONTINUE THAW WITH EXCHANGE OF DIPLOMATS

Building on President Clinton's lifting of a U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam, the two nations announced agreement Thursday to open diplomatic missions in each other's capitals.

Vietnam and the United States still will not exchange ambassadors, but the move is ``an important step toward normalization of relations,'' Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said.

Opening the missions underscores the quickening improvement in relations after two decades of bitterness over a 10-year war that killed nearly 60,000 Americans and as many as 2 million Vietnamese.

Clinton ended a 19-year embargo on trade with Vietnam on Feb. 3, citing improvements in cooperation from Vietnam's Communist leaders in accounting for American servicemen missing from the war.

U.S. officials said the new diplomatic office would handle trade and business, tourism and culture and help in the continuing effort to determine the fate of 2,233 American MIAs. Vietnam lists 300,000 soldiers as missing.

State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said the date for opening the offices would depend on working out the return of each other's diplomatic properties. Vietnam said only the wording of the documents remained to be decided.

Vietnamese officials predicted the offices would be operating in two or three months. The Foreign Ministry said the agreement on exchanging missions was reached during talks last Friday and Saturday between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord and Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai.

by CNB