HANOI: Relations between Viet Nam and the United States have gone beyond the economic domain to a new one: military cooperation, which can be best exemplified by Vietnamese Defence Minister's upcoming visit to Washington.

Viet Nam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently announced that Defence Minister Pham Van Tra will visit the United States soon at the invitation of his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld. It will be the first visit to Washington by a Vietnamese Defence Minister since the Viet Nam War ended in 1975.

The ministry also mentioned the possibility of a US navy ship docking at a Vietnamese port.

Military ties between the two countries started to show signs of improvement three years ago. In March 2000, then US Secretary of Defence William Cohen became the first post-war US defence chief to pay an official visit to Viet Nam.

In May, deputy chief of staff of the US Army John LeMoyne came to Viet Nam as part of the 73rd operations of the US Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, which searches for the remains of servicemen listed as missing in action (MIA) in the country.

The MIA issue has been the focus of Viet Nam-US military ties for years. Viet Nam handed over the remains of five US soldiers to Washington in May. It was the 89th time that the country returned the remains of soldiers to the United States since 1973, bringing the total to 805.

In April, US House of Representatives member Robert R. Simmons visited Viet Nam to discuss ways of accelerating the search for MIAs. Fifteen years ago, the two countries conducted the first MIA joint field investigations.

Viet Nam and the United States have long focused on improving diplomatic and economic ties.

Four days earlier, Viet Nam's Planning and Investment Minister Vo Hong Phuc visited the United States, calling on US firms to pour more investment, especially into the country's projects on airports, ports, transport, information technology and food processing.

The most important milestone in the decade-long normalization of Viet Nam-US relations started in the 1990s.

Thanks to lowered tariffs and removal of other trade barriers, Vietnamese exports to the United States increased by 127.6 per cent to US$2.39 billion last year. Viet Nam's Trade Ministry estimated export volume to the US market will increase to US$3.8 billion to 4.19 billion this year, with key items being seafood, garments, textiles and footwear.

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2003)