Speaking at the event, VNOSMP Director Le Thanh Tung said that over the past 45 years, thousands of VNOSMP staff together with tens of thousands of personnel from local authorities and from all walks of life nationwide have sought the remains of US servicemen missing in action.

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Delegates in a joint photo

Up to now, Vietnam and the US have conducted 130 joint activities, with 972 sets of remains handed over to the US, nearly 720 of which have been identified, he added.

Vietnam’s goodwill and full cooperation have been welcomed by the US administration and Congress, the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia and the US war veterans’ organizations, which also stepped up the US’s efforts to address war consequences in Vietnam, especially post-war bomb and mine clearance and dioxin clean-up. In particular, the US war veterans’ organizations have provided information regarding more than 11,000 Vietnamese martyrs, thus helping Vietnam to locate over 1,000 remains, Tung stressed.

Speaking at the event, General Vinh highly valued the operation of VNOSMP over the past time, which practically contributed to boosting the Vietnam-US relationship. He also urged the VNOSMP to enhance the search for missing US servicemen, and consider the work, in attachment with the relief of the war aftermath, as a priority to develop the Vietnam-US bilateral ties. The Deputy-Defense Minister also asked them to improve capacities and raise public awareness of the searches in the time to come.

In turn, Deputy-Minister of Foreign Affairs Ha Kim Ngoc paid his deep gratitude to generations of leaders and staff of ministries, sectors and localities nationwide for their wholehearted assistance to VNOSMP’s task fulfillment.

Translated by Trung Thanh