The Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) handed over one set of remains believed to belong to an American serviceman who died during the war in Vietnam that ended in 1975.

The handover was conducted during a repatriation ceremony held at Da Nang International Airport on Tuesday with the attendance of representatives from VNOSMP, the U.S. MIA (missing-in-action) Office in Hanoi, and the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

Also present at the event were officials from the Vietnam American Association, Veterans for Peace, and representative offices of some foreign countries and international organizations in Vietnam.

Two commanding officers of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and its accompanying ships, which are on a port call to Da Nang City in central Vietnam, attended the ceremony, too.

It was the 161st handover of remains since 1973, two years before the end of the war in Vietnam.

The remains were found as a result of the 151st joint search for MIA remains between Vietnam and the U.S., scheduled for May to July 2023.

Vietnamese and U.S. forensic experts determined that the set of remains likely belonged to a U.S. soldier after they examined it in Da Nang on Monday. 

The U.S. side will transfer the remains to a laboratory in Hawaii for further verification.

The joint humanitarian operation to locate and identify American servicemen missing in the war in Vietnam has been conducted since the late 1980s between the two governments. 

To date, this activity has helped identify more than 700 sets of remains of MIA U.S. service members.

The issue of MIA was a major aspect of the process taken by the two countries to normalize diplomatic relations in 1995, according to the Vietnam News Agency. 

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