Two US Navy ships on Wednesday became the first since the war ended to dock in northern Vietnam, the US embassy said, reflecting growing bilateral ties. The USS Guardian and the USS Patriot would stay in Haiphong port until Sunday to allow their crew to tour the city, visit schools and meet Vietnamese authorities, it said.
Their presence "reflects the growing co-operation between the two countries, including in the area of military-to-military relations," the embassy added in a statement.
It is the fifth port visit by US Navy ships to Vietnam since the two former enemies normalised relations in 1995, but the first to a northern city. The USS Vandegrift was the first American warship to come back after the Vietnam war ended. It moored in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, in 2003, almost 30 decades after US troops were forced into a humiliating scramble out of Vietnam on April 30, 1975.
The last time a US vessel came to Haiphong was during the Vietnam war, in 1973. Military relations between the two former enemies have improved since November 2003, when Vietnam's now retired defence minister Pham Van Tra came to Washington for talks with his then US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld reciprocated with a visit to Hanoi in June 2006.