Cohen Vietnam Visit Possible

[bich dao <daotb@yahoo.com>]

Cohen Vietnam Visit Possible 


 WASHINGTON (AP) ^× The United States and Vietnam are discussing
arrangements
 for a possible visit to Hanoi by Defense Secretary William Cohen but
no date has
 been set, Cohen's chief spokesman said Wednesday. 

 Spokesman Kenneth Bacon said both governments ``fully expect'' a
suitable date
 to be worked out ``but it's unlikely to be September.'' 

 The Far Eastern Economic Review reported that Hanoi called off a Cohen
visit that
 had been scheduled for Sept. 30. Asked about the report, Bacon said,
``Both the
 United States and Vietnam continue to discuss an appropriate time for
the
 secretary to go.'' He declined to go into more detail. 

 The main vehicle for U.S.-Vietnamese military relations is the Joint
Task Force Full
 Accounting, which was established to search for and recover the
remains of
 American servicemen lost in the Vietnam War. 

 No U.S. defense secretary has visited Vietnam since the war. 

 In a sign of increased cooperation, Vietnam sent two observers this
month to a
 U.S.-Thai counter-narcotics training exercise in Thailand involving
U.S. military
 and Drug Enforcement Agency personnel as well as Thai border patrol
police and
 provincial police, Bacon said. It was the first time Vietnam had
associated itself
 with such an exercise, he said. 
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