Obama meets Laotian president in 1st US presidential visit

US President Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to step foot in the isolated Southeast Asian nation of Laos, opening a three-day visit meant to rebuild trust and close a dark chapter in the shared history between the two countries, ABC News reported. 

Obama is one of several world leaders coming to the country of nearly 7 million people, where the one-party communist state tightly controls public expression but is using its moment in the spotlight as host of the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open up to outsiders.

Obama arrived late Monday and began a full day of ceremony and diplomacy Tuesday morning with a meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit. 

In Laos, Obama will wrestle with the ghosts of past US policies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the US rained bombs on Laotian villages and the countryside as America's war with Vietnam spilled across the border. 

The Laotian government estimates that more than 2 million tons of ordnance were released during more than 500,000 missions — one bomb every eight minutes for nine years.

Source: MENA