A New York-based charitable group is launching a project to help Vietnam deal with issues related to the use of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, that US troops sprayed across the country during the war, reported the AP news agency.

According to the news agency, the Ford Foundation plans to spend 7.5 million USD on the humanitarian effort over the next two years, which will bring together prominent scientists, policy-makers and business figures from both the US and Vietnam.

Vietnamese State President Nguyen Minh Triet, who is on a state visit to the US from June 18-23, met with Ford officials in New York on June 19 to discuss the effort.

Leading the initiative is a newly appointed US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange, whose members include former secretary of the US Environmental Protection Agency Christine Todd Whitman and Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee Ton Nu Thi Ninh.

“The time is right for our two countries to come together to address this legacy and to mainstream discussion of this unresolved issue,'' Whitman was quoted by AP in a statement as saying.

Dioxin, the highly toxic chemical in Agent Orange, still contaminates the soil in various places where US troops used to store, mix and load the herbicide onto airplanes. It has been associated with various birth defects and health problems, said AP.

The group will try to build a bipartisan, humanitarian approach to Agent Orange among government, charitable groups and donors “where diplomatic efforts alone have proved difficult.''

It will promote efforts to clean up dioxin at former US military bases; support treatment and education centres for victims of dioxin-related disorders; and develop a Vietnamese lab for dioxin testing, the news agency added. (VNA)