U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday at a news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang "The United States is fully lifting the ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam that has been in place for some 50 years."
Obama said the U.S. will also help Vietnam remove landmines and Agent Orange remaining in Vietnam following the war between the two countries.
Agent Orange was a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War that was later revealed to cause serious health issues, including birth defects, tumors, rashes and cancer.
Earlier Monday, Obama was formally welcomed to Vietnam by Quang at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi.
The American leader's meetings Monday with his Vietnamese counterpart and other senior officials are an indication of what analysts describe as the closest ties ever between the two countries.
Obama is in Vietnam for a three-day visit. After Vietnam, he will go to Japan.
He will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. The U.S. president said in an interview with Japan public broadcaster NHK he will not apologize for the bombing.