"We will bring the best and most advanced DNA technology to Vietnam in the hope of helping Vietnamese people find their relatives who died in the war," Knapper said on Friday.
His statement was made at a press conference at which Director General of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power was in attendance. Power has been on a visit to Vietnam for a week already.
Knapper said that Washington is very interested in searching for missing soldiers, emphasizing that the US will increase cooperation efforts with Vietnam to cope with the consequences of war.
In addition to technology sharing, Knapper said the U.S. needs to help the Vietnamese government and researchers access data sources developed by the U.S. that help identify the remains of soldiers killed in action (KIA) during the war.
"This is a very time-consuming process but the U.S. government and USAID have a very strong commitment to support Vietnam," Knapper said.
USAID Director General Samantha Power said the U.S. can also apply its DNA analyzing experience accumulated in Bosnia and African to aid Vietnam in searching for the remains of hundreds of thousands of its soldiers who remain missing in action (MIA).
During a meeting with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, Power said that USAID will continue to focus on solving war legacy issues, including dioxin decontamination at Bien Hoa Airport, and improving DNA testing capacity for Vietnamese scientists to search for and identify the remains of Vietnamese MIAs, improve health and social services to boost the quality of life of people with disabilities, and assist Vietnam in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Cre: 4English