Kerry in Vietnam on first visit as top US diplomat

US Secretary of State attended mass at a cathedral in Vietnam, where he served during the war, in a trip aimed at shoring up Southeast Asian ties amid myriad regional tensions.

According to AFP, John Kerry Saturday, experiences during the Vietnam War inspired his political activism, visited the French-colonial era Notre Dame Cathedral in southern Ho Chi Minh City as he began his first official visit to the nation as the top US diplomat.

Kerry is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi as part of his three-day visit, and is expected to highlight growing security and trade ties between Washington and Hanoi, which normalized relations two decades ago.

He is also due to visit to the Mekong Delta where he was a wartime Swift Boat skipper on the dangerous gunboat missions patrolling the rivers in the area.

The Vietnam War was the longest war in United States history.