White House: Obama to visit Vietnam in May

President Barack Obama greets Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, left, at a meeting of ASEAN, the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Monday, Feb. 15, 2016. Obama and the leaders of the Southeast Asian nations are gathering for two days of talks on economic and security issues and on forging deeper ties amid China’s assertive presence in the region. AP

RANCHO MIRAGE, California — President Barack Obama will visit Vietnam in May when he’ll be in Asia attending an international summit.

The White House says Obama told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung he had accepted an invitation to visit the former US adversary.

Obama and Dung spoke Monday on the sidelines of a US summit with Southeast Asian leaders taking place in Southern California.

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The White House says they discussed improved relations between their countries. Last year marked 20 years since diplomatic relations between them were restored.

Obama met at the White House last year with Nguyen Phu Trong, head of Vietnam’s Communist Party.

At the time, Trong said he had invited Obama to visit. Obama noted the invitation in his remarks but didn’t say whether he had accepted it.

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