Clinton cuts Hue out of Vietnam itinerary

November 8, 2000
Web posted at: 8:43 AM HKT (0043 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has scrapped a planned trip to the central city of Hue during his trip to Vietnam later this month, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Clinton, who will be the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the Vietnam War, had planned to make a day stopover in Hue during his four-day visit to Vietnam.

But officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the trip had been shortened and Hue had been taken off the schedule. They would give no further details.

Clinton's original plans were to spend four days in Vietnam from November 16, including three nights in Hanoi, followed by a stop in Hue and a night and a day in Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh City, also called Saigon, was capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam until 1975.

Clinton announced normalisation of relations with Vietnam in July 1995, saying the time has come to moved forward and heal the wounds from the traumatic war years.

The president's trip to Asia, which also includes a Nov. 15-16 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Brunei, is being cut by at least a day because of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Washington on November 12.

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