~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Vietnam leader proposes active role for Korea peace

SEOUL - Vietnam is ready to play an active role in enhancing stability on the Korean peninsula, visiting communist party leader Nong Duc Manh said Wednesday. The proposal came as Manh briefed South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun on his meeting last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, Roh's spokesman Cheon Ho-Seon said.

Manh said Kim had expressed his intention to resolve the North Korean nuclear weapons issue through dialogue, the spokesman said. Roh thanked Vietnam for its "constructive" role in helping to improve peace on the peninsula.

The Vietnamese party chief was quoted as saying that his country is ready to "actively contribute to promoting relations between South and North Korea as well as stability on the Korean peninsula." Kim Jong-Il had also expressed interest in learning from Vietnam's economic reforms during his meeting with Manh, according to earlier reports. Those reforms ushered in dramatic growth but left the authority of the ruling communist party unchallenged. Manh and Roh agreed to work to raise bilateral trade to 10 billion dollars in five to seven years from 4.85 billion dollars last year, the spokesman said.

South Korea is already the largest foreign investor in Vietnam and Manh asked for even more investment. Roh sought support for South Korean firms seeking to enter the electricity, urban development and steel sectors. Manh's visit coincided with the arrival of North Korea's Prime Minister Kim Yong-Il for inter-Korean talks, in the highest-level visit by a Pyongyang official to Seoul for 15 years. Kim Yong-Il, the top economic policy official in the hardline communist state, visited Vietnam last month in an apparent attempt to learn from its experiences in boosting growth.

South Korea fought in the Vietnam War alongside the United States and more than 5,000 Koreans were killed. But this year the two countries celebrated the 15th anniversary of diplomatic normalisation. Bilateral trade jumped to 4.85 billion dollars last year from 490 million in 1992. South Korea's accumulated investment in Vietnam reached more than 11 billion dollars at the end of October, according to official data.

Agence France Presse - November 14, 2007.