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

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US seeks closer defence ties with Vietnam

HANOI - The United States hopes to step up military relations with Vietnam and is planning the sale of non-lethal defence equipment to its former enemy, a visiting senior Pentagon official said Friday. Washington had invited Hanoi to send military observers to regional naval exercises and planned to soon sell it equipment including helicopter parts and coastal patrol craft, said Brigadier General John Toolan.

"We're working slowly towards building a relationship where we can trade and sell to them equipment and technology that they need," he said, adding that this could eventually include lethal military hardware. The two sides also hoped to start in coming months a joint search for the remains of US wartime pilots shot down over the South China Sea, said Toolan, Asia Pacific principal director in the Office of the Secretary of Defence. A US naval research vessel would provide oceanographic and meteorological data in the search for "400-odd pilots that have been shot down during the Vietnam War and are in the ocean," Toolan told a Hanoi media briefing.

The United States also hoped to help Vietnam with its search and rescue capabilities and step up an ongoing language training programme, he said. Toolan said the effort to strengthen defence ties with Vietnam was not aimed against China, which he said Washington sought to engage, not contain. But he conceded that Hanoi would always consider its ties with Beijing. "They share a border with China, so I don't think they're really going to make any decisions without taking into consideration what's the impact on China," he said, speaking during a four-day visit to communist Vietnam. Toolan said the United States was encouraging Vietnam "to assume a larger role" in regional security groupings including the ASEAN Regional Forum. With its long coastline, Vietnam could eventually become a "tremendous contributor" to counter-terrorism efforts, providing surveillance and maritime interdiction of vessels thought to carry weapons of mass destruction, he said.

Agence France Presse - March 23, 2007.