WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
is to become the first top US diplomat to visit Laos in 57 years, as
part of an eight-nation tour that also takes her to Egypt and Israel,
the State Department announced Thursday.
"Clinton will travel to France, Japan, Mongolia,
Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Egypt and Israel departing Washington, DC on
July 5," said a statement from State Department spokeswoman Victoria
Nuland released upon their departure. Clinton was officially invited to
Laos by counterpart Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in 2010 when
he made the first visit by a top Laotian official to Washington.
The United States established normal trade ties
with Laos in 2004 and has recently looked at ways to help clean up
abandoned ordnance that continues to take a heavy civilian toll.
US forces dropped millions of bombs on the
country to cut off northern Viet Nam supply lines, which according to a
2010 survey have killed or injured some 50,000 people in Laos.
The Laos stop forms part of an Asian swing that
will also take in Japan, Mongolia and Viet Nam ahead of talks in
Cambodia with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
China.
On her way back from Asia, Clinton will make a
two-day stop in America's key Middle Eastern ally Egypt, her first
since President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood became the
country's first Islamist leader.
Her last visit to Egypt came in March 2011, when
she toured Cairo's Tahrir Square in the wake of the protests that
ousted Hosni Mubarak.
Clinton wraps up her tour with a final two-day
stop on July 16-17 in Israel, "where she will be meeting with the
Israeli leadership to discuss peace efforts and a range of regional and
bilateral issues of mutual concern," according to Nuland's statement.
It will be Clinton's first visit to Israel in
almost two years, since September 2010. "We can presume she will be
visiting multiple sites in Israel," Patrick Ventrell, a State
Department spokesman, told journalists in Washington.
Her opening stop though was France on Thursday
for talks boycotted by both China and Russia on how to end the 16-month
conflict in Syria.
Friday's "Friends of Syria" meeting is aimed at
coordinating efforts to stop the violence in the country that the
London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says has claimed the
lives of 16,500 people.
While in Paris, Clinton will also meet
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to discuss efforts to build trust with
the Israelis following an exchange of letters between Abbas and Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the State Department said.
Observers say Clinton's brief talks in Laos are
likely to focus on the US administration's Lower Mekong Initiative as
well as efforts to fight drug trafficking. She may also seek to give
fresh impetus to American hopes to recover the remains of US troops
killed there during the Viet Nam War.
The talks could also focus on Laos's imminent entry to the World Trade Organisation.
In May, Laos said it had postponed construction
of a controversial dam on the Mekong, dismissing fears the work was
going ahead despite growing regional and international opposition.
The $3.8 billion Xayaburi dam is slated to be
the first of 11 big dams along the main stem of the 4,600km Mekong
River, which passes through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia
and Viet Nam. AFP
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