The Vientiane Treaty was a cease-fire agreement between the two warring factions in the Laotian Civil War (the Kingdom of Laos and the communist Pathet Lao), signed in

Vientiane Vientiane ( , ; lo, ວຽງຈັນ, ''Viangchan'', ) is the capital and largest city of Laos. Vientiane is divided administratively into 9 cities with a total area of only approx. 3,920 square kilometres and is located on the banks of ...

(the capital of Laos), on 21 February 1973. The Vientiane Treaty was in some sense a corollary to the Paris Peace Accords, signed the month before, which had ended

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

involvement in the

Vietnam war The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. Just as the Paris Accords had mandated the withdrawal of all US forces in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, the Vientiane Treaty called for the removal from Laos of all foreign forces allied to each side. Under the terms of the treaty, a new coalition government was to be created; security in major cities (such as Vientiane) was to be undertaken by joint forces from both sides. There were no outside guarantees to the terms, as the agreement was only between the Lao factions; the ICC (which had overseen the 1954 Geneva Accords ending the

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...

) was more powerless than before to monitor compliance. The coalition government envisaged by the treaty did not long outlast it; as with the treaty itself, events in Laos emulated those in Vietnam. Shortly after the fall of the South Vietnamese government on 30 April 1975, the Pathet Lao took over Laos on 15 August 1975.

External links

History of Laos

Peace treaties 1973 in Laos Treaties of the Kingdom of Laos Treaties concluded in 1973 20th century in Vientiane 1970s in Laos {{Laos-hist-stub