Ted Yoho (R), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific under the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, during a field trip to the dioxin treatment site at Da Nang airport (Photo: VNA)Da Nang (VNA) – Officers of the Ministry of National Defence on October 17 held aworking session with a delegation of US congressmen on the settlement of warconsequences in Vietnam.
The Vietnamesedelegation was led by Deputy Commander of the Air Force - Air Defence MajorGeneral Bui Anh Chung, while the US delegation was headed by Ted Yoho, Chairmanof the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific under the US House Foreign AffairsCommittee.
The two sidesdiscussed a range of contents, including the treatment of toxic/dioxincontamination at Da Nang Airport. The Vietnamese side suggested the US congressand government to continue providing non-refundable ODA capital for detoxificationat toxic/dioxin hotspots, including Da Nang, Bien Hoa and Phu Cat airports, andclearance of unexploded mines and bombs.
They also agreedto conduct cooperation activities to support Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims andto search for remains of US and Vietnamese servicemen missing in action duringthe war.
Officialstatistics showed that nearly 61,300 square kilometres of land in all 63provinces and cities across Vietnam, or 18.82 percent of the country’s totalarea, have been contaminated with explosive objects left from the war, with thecentral province of Quang Tri being the most contaminated locality.
The Ministry ofNational Defence and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) havecoordinated to decontaminate about 90,000 cubic metres of land at the Da Nangairport. Funding for the project included 100 million USD from the USgovernment’s non-refundable ODA and 2.7 million USD from the Vietnamesegovernment.
Since 2003, theUS has provided Vietnam with 103 million USD for post-war bomb and mineclearance in residential areas and improve units’ ordnance treatment capacity.
Vietnam and theUS began their join search for remains of US servicemen in 1988, with 1000 setsof remains handed over to the US government to date.-VNA
VNA
