HANOI, July 24 (News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived here Tuesday on his first journey back to Vietnam since his wartime service more than 30 years ago.
The soldier-turned-statesman said he was "very emotional" to return to a country where many of his comrades fell in combat.
But he insisted: "I'm very pleased to be back."
Powell was due to join heavyweight officials including Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov Wednesday at the Regional Forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
He arrived from Tokyo on the second leg of his first Asian tour as America's top diplomat.
Powell was greeted at Hanoi airport by the head of the Americas department of the Vietnamese foreign ministry, Nguyen Xuan Phong, and on the U.S. side by the charge d'affaires at the embassy, Dennis Harter.
He was presented with a bouquet of flowers by a Vietnamese girl dressed in traditional costume before boarding his motorcade for the 65-kilometer (40-mile) journey into the communist capital.
Before leaving Washington, the former chief of staff spoke of the "flood of emotions" he expected to experience on his return to a country where he lost "a lot of people I was close to."
The ride in from the airport would have brought the memories rushing back.
His motorcade swept past paddy fields where Vietnamese peasants wearing their trademark conical hats tended their crops, much as they did during Powell's two tours of duty in 1962 and 1968.
During his four-day stay, Powell was scheduled to hold talks with all of Vietnam's top communist officials - party chief Nong Duc Manh, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and President Tran Duc Luong as well as Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien.
Nien said his country looked forward to meeting the U.S. secretary of state despite his wartime service.
"We are looking forward to meet him as a participant in the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) and as secretary of state in Vietnam," Nien told a news conference shortly before Powell's arrival.
"We do hope that we will have good talks with the secretary of state during his
time in Hanoi."
Nien said Powell's wartime service did not have to be a problem - he cited the case of former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson, a war veteran who spent almost six years in communist prisons after his capture by the North Vietnamese army.
"For the past years since the two countries normalised relations (in 1995) and established diplomatic relations, we have moved forward and I must say that Mr. Peterson had made a very good contribution to this new process," Nien said.
Powell will at least not have to contend with Manh's hardline predecessor as party supremo - Le Kha Phieu - who was ousted at a five-yearly party congress in April.
The lifelong army commissar marred the atmosphere of reconciliation carefully nurtured by former president Bill Clinton during his landmark visit here last November, launching a vigorous defence of the Vietnam War as a "great socialist victory."
Relations between Hanoi and Washington plummeted following the election of President George W. Bush on a platform of taking a tough stand against Asia's remaining communist states.
But they have improved markedly since Bush submitted a landmark trade deal between the former foes to Congress for ratification last month.
The deal had been signed under the Clinton administration last July but the former president ran out of legislative time to ratify it.
Nien said he hoped the legislatures of both nations would ratify the agreement soon.
On Thursday Powell is due to take time out to visit the U.S. mission charged with accounting for U.S. servicemen still posted as missing from the war.
The former chief of staff is expected to pay tribute to seven U.S. servicemen who were killed while on a search operation in April in the first post-war tragedy to hit the U.S. military here.
Nine Vietnamese were also killed in the helicopter crash on Vietnam's central coast.
