HO CHI MINH CITY -- Vietnamese Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu told visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday that the United States must bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for the Vietnam War and should act accordingly, Vietnamese state-run media reported Sunday.

Newspapers quoted Phieu as telling Clinton, the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the war's end in 1975, that while he agrees with him that the past can neither be changed nor forgotten. "It is important to correctly understand the nature of the past," Phieu said, "And particularly the anti-aggression resistance war which the Vietnamese people had to fight."

"For us, the past is the root, the foundation and the strength of the present and future," he said, adding that the lesson to be drawn is that "it is important for the responsible people not to repeat what they did in the past."