US Secretary of State to Visit Beijing Today

Mr. Kerry came to lay the groundwork for a summit that President Barack Obama will host in February for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group that Laos chairs this year. The massive gold stupa is the most important national symbol in Laos.

“He wants maritime rights protected and he wants to avoid militarisation and avoid the conflict”.

Kerry’s final stop on his eight-day trip is in Beijing.

Fresh from a trip to Saudi Arabia, Kerry hailed growing economic, environmental and security co-operation, as well as Laos’ chairmanship of ASEAN, as the “defining” issues of a new friendship. At the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Phnom Penh in July 2012, Cambodia sided with China’s insistence that disputes over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea should be solved bilaterally rather than through a multilateral forum like ASEAN.

Murray Hiebert, a Laos expect at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that “these statements by Lao leaders aren’t totally surprising”. Obama’s attendance at an ASEAN meeting in Vientiane will mark the first time US president ever has visited the landlocked country.

North Korea is already one of the most sanctioned nations in the world.

“If that’s their attitude, the war doesn’t end”, Kerry said. Mr. Kerry also will meet with Thongloun Sisoulith, who wears two hats as deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

The swing comes before Obama next month holds an unprecedented Southeast Asian summit with regional leaders at the Sunnylands retreat in California.

Legacies of War was founded in 2004 to raise awareness about the history of the Vietnam War-era bombing of Laos and advocate for greater USA funding to address its legacy.

Ties between the former Cold War foes have warmed over the last 15 years or so, following cooperation over efforts to locate American soldiers missing during the Vietnam war and to dispose of unexploded USA ordnance. Kerry, a Vietnam war veteran, also brought up a new $6 million child nutrition program, and U.S.-funded “smart infrastructure” for the Mekong River.

“We want [the next election] to be free, fair; we want to solve problems that remain so far, human rights violations and also opposition rights”.

“The worldwide community should demand Laos’ leaders end their restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, stop their crushing censorship of the media, and permit freedom of association for workers to form independent trade unions”, Robertson said.

“He’ll also meet with members of civil society to underscore both USA support for democracy in Cambodia but also, importantly, US support for human rights, for civil rights, and for political space”, the department briefing said.

“After decades of a very hard relationship between Laos and the US – a period of estrangement, a period of mutual suspicion – there has been increasingly a real transformation in the bilateral relationship”, a US State Department official told reporters ahead of the visit.