US military specialists will return to Viet Nam to help train Vietnamese soldiers under a new agreement with the Pentagon, a senior Vietnamese official said in an interview published Thursday.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan told The Washington Times the agreement came at the end of a meeting between Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. A Pentagon official said Rumsfeld briefly met Khai on Tuesday evening.

Khai's visit to Washington, which ended yesterday, was the first by a Vietnamese prime minister since the Viet Nam War ended 30 years ago.

"At the initial stage, we will receive support in training our military in terms of English and some of the medical staff and technical staff," said Khoan through an interpreter.

A defence department spokesman told the newspaper that details of the military-to-military training proposal still had to be worked out.

The newspaper also said the deputy prime minister categorically denied that any American POWs were left alive in Viet Nam as some US POW/MIA groups say.

"I would really admire you if you could find any POW alive," he said. "If we think logically, I do not understand why we should keep any POW. Because we have now sat down with (President Bush), we don't have anything else to bargain."

Source: China Daily