US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) hosts a Bilateral Meeting with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday offered Vietnam aid for typhoon victims during wide-ranging talks here with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem.

Standing next to Khiem, who is also the deputy prime minister, Clinton said the talks also touched on trade, security, human rights and Vietnam’s chairmanship in 2010 of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“I want to start by expressing the deepest sympathy of the United States for the loss of life and destruction of property caused across so many countries through the impact of Typhoon Ketsana,” Clinton told reporters.

Vietnam intensified efforts to get cooking to stranded victims of the typhoon, which killed at least 92 people and left 19 missing, according to official figures. It was one of the worst disasters to hit the country in years.

“As I told Minister Khiem, we stand ready to assist the people of Vietnam as they recover from this tragedy, just as we are working with the victims of the earthquakes, of the tsunamis,” the chief US diplomat said.

Disasters have also hit the Samoan islands and Indonesia.

“We believe that this is a region vital to global progress, prosperity, and peace, and we are fully engaged with our partners in ASEAN on a wide range of challenges,” said Clinton who has visited ASEAN members Indonesia and Thailand since assuming her job in January.

The pair discussed security, trade, human rights, freedom of expression, humanitarian cooperation, natural disaster cooperation, Hanoi’s chairmanship next year of ASEAN and chairmanship of the UN the Security Council this month.

Clinton, recalling how US-Vietnamese trade jumped tenfold to more than US$15 billion from 2001, when their trade agreement took effect, said the pair discussed areas in which to expand trade and economic cooperation.

“I just want to add that the discussions took place in an atmosphere which is very friendly, constructive, and candid,” Khiem told reporters.

“And I reaffirmed the commitment of the Vietnamese government to attach importance to relations with United States, and we consider the US as the top partner of Vietnam,” he said through an interpreter.

“And bilateral ties have been growing very fast in the past years, and we need to build on that progress for further expansion of bilateral economic and trade ties, and also cooperation in education training, our science and technology cooperation,” he said.

“We have high value for the quality of higher education of the United States, and currently over 10,000 Vietnamese students are studying in United States,” he added.

Source: AFP