HANOI, April 29: Prime Minister Phan Van Khai declared in a speech Friday marking 30 years since the end of the Vietnam war that the country wanted to move on from past enmity and advance ties with its one-time ‘aggressors’. “We advocate friendly cooperation to strengthen relations with countries that took part in the Vietnam war,” Mr Khai said at the National Assembly hall in Hanoi, addressing top Vietnamese leaders, war veterans and foreign envoys, including US ambassador Michael Marine.

Gala celebrations have been scheduled for Saturday in the southern economic capital of Ho Chi Minh City to mark the liberation of the city formerly called Saigon.

The campaign to liberate the city, named after the founder of Vietnam’s Communist party, led to the capture on April 30, 1975, of Saigon, which had been the capital of the US-backed South Vietnamese regime.

The fall of Saigon after 55 days and nights of fighting sealed the defeat of the American presence in Southeast Asia and helped strengthen the Vietnamese Communist party, which is still in power today.

Khai was diplomatic in his references to the United States, which is today a leading trade partner, making only allusions to past “aggressors”.

“The victory of April 30, 1975 put an end to three decades of war against foreign aggressors in our country,” said Khai, who is expected soon to make the first trip by a Vietnamese premier to the United States since the conflict.

After the ceremony, which featured an elaborate enactment of the Vietnam War and its aftermath by scores of young performers, with a backdrop of old films depicting the events on a screen, US ambassador Marine told AFP: “Today is Vietnam’s day.”—AFP