Vietnam is among four European and Asian countries that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit from April 11 to 18, the U.S. Department of State announced in a press release on Monday.

During his trip, he will travel to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Vietnam, and Japan.

This will be his first official visit to Vietnam as U.S. Secretary of State.

Blinken had visited the Southeast Asian nation in April 2016 when he was serving as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State.

A delegation of U.S. senators announced Secretary Blinken’s trip at a press conference on April 8 during their trip to Vietnam.

Secretary Blinken’s visit comes after a phone call on March 29 between Vietnam’s Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and U.S. President Joe Biden.

The U.S. Department of State did not reveal the date Blinken would visit Vietnam.

Instead, it stated that U.S. Secretary Blinken would travel to Hanoi to advance key discussions with Vietnamese partners in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the two nations’ comprehensive partnership. 

The U.S. diplomat will meet with senior Vietnamese officials to discuss both sides’ shared vision of a connected, prosperous, peaceful, and resilient Indo-Pacific region.

He will then travel to Karuizawa, Japan to attend the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and discuss with his counterparts the chart for a path forward on a range of global issues between April 16 and 18.

Prior to Blinken’s trip to Asia, he will accompany President Biden on his trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland from April 11 to 14.

Vietnam and the U.S. established their diplomatic relations in 1995 and upgraded their ties to a comprehensive partnership in 2013.

The two nations have exchanged a number of high-level delegation visits under the Biden administration.

In May last year, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh traveled to the U.S. to attend the U.S.-ASEAN summit and met with President Biden at the White House.

The two leaders later met each other on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit taking place in Cambodia in November last year.

U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris is the highest-level official under President Biden to visit Vietnam in August 2021, at the invitation of Vietnam’s Vice-State President Vo Thi Anh Xuan.

In a phone call late last month, Vietnam’s Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and President Biden repeated invitations to visit each other’s nation.

The two leaders accepted the invitations and assigned relevant agencies to arrange a proper time for the visits.

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