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VN News (May 22, 1997)



Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - May 22, 1997 
Albright to Visit Vietnam and Cambodia 



Hanoi (VNA)  - Highlights of  Vietnam's daily newspapers today:

<P>NHAN DAN:<p>

1.  Vietnam Communist Party's General Secretary Do Muoi
leaves  Hanoi today on a four day official friendship visit to Myanmar.

<P>2.  Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet was welcomed in
Warsaw on Tuesday by Polish Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewiez at
the beginning of his two day official visit.

<P>It is the first leg of a visit to four European countries
of Poland, Czech, Italy and Hungary.

<P> HANOI MOI:<P>

1. A seminar on promotion of ASEAN women's participation
in decision making positions was held here yesterday jointly by the
ASEAN Confederation of Women's Organisations and the  Vietnam Women's
Union.<P>

2.  Vietnam's Ministry of Trade has announced that ABB, the
Transformer JV Company, has exported over 200 different types of
transformers to ASEAN countries, earning an export turnover of over US$
1.1 million in the first four months.

<P> VIETNAM NEWS:<P>

1. During a two-day visit to  Vietnam from May 21-22, the
Italian Minister of Transport and Navigation, Claudio Burlando, said
Italy is expected to sign a cooperation agreement on transport and
communications with  Vietnam next month.<P>

2. An exhibition of  Vietnamese art will tour the US in
November.



Thursday - May 22, 1997


Albright to Visit Vietnam and Cambodia 



WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
said Thursday she would visit Vietnam and Cambodia at the end of
next month.
<p>
	    Albright, speaking during testimony to a Senate panel, said

she would travel to the two Southeast Asian states on her way to

Hong Kong for ceremonies marking the handover of the colony from

British to Chinese rule July 1.

<p>
	    She said she was deeply concerned about an upsurge of

violence in Cambodia, including a grenade attack in Phnom Penh

March 30, adding: &quot;We have warned Cambodia's leaders that

political violence would jeopardize international support.&quot;

<p>
	    She said she agreed with the assessment of one senator at

the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Relations that there

was a danger of the country sliding back into civil war and a

possible delay in elections scheduled for late 1998.

<p>
	    On her visit, she said, &quot;I will make very clear that it is

important for them to proceed down the democratic path.&quot;

<p>
	    Cambodia, ravaged by decades of war punctuated by a

disastrous revolution by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, has been

ruled by a shaky coalition of royalist and former communist

parties since U.N.-arranged elections in 1993.

<p>
	    The country has been hit by violence and bitter feuding

within the coalition in recent months.

<p>
	    Albright said her visit would help the United States to

determine its attitude to a July 1-2 Paris meeting of aid donors

to Cambodia and to the impoverished country's bid to join the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

<p>
	    &quot;We need to do whatever we can to support the democratic

forces and if inclusion in ASEAN would assist them at this stage

I think it bears support,&quot; she said, but added she wanted to

assess the violence and political problems.

<p>
	    She gave no dates for the visits, but she is expected to

leave Washington June 24 and will arrive in Hong Kong June 30.

<p>
	    Her predecessor Warren Christopher went to Phnom Penh and

Hanoi in August 1995. He opened the U.S. embassy in the

Vietnamese capital and was the most senior U.S. official to

visit the former U.S. enemy since the end of the Vietnam War.

<p>
	    The Clinton administration has made clear it is keen to

build up economic and other ties with Vietnam while still

pressing for a full accounting of U.S. servicemen missing in the

war.

<p>
	    The first post-war U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Douglas

&quot;Pete&quot; Peterson, who took up his post May 9, unveiled an

agenda in Hanoi Thursday that focused on America's &quot;Missing In

Action&quot;.
<p>
	    He stressed the importance that Washington attached to

accounting for the 2,124 Americans still listed as missing in

Indochina.

<p>
	    But he said the hunt for remains, which has always been the

United States' priority in postwar Vietnam, would not

necessarily prevent the two countries moving ahead in other

areas of their relationship.