The Prime Minister’s visit to Cambodia takes place in the context that the two countries are holding many significant activities within the “Vietnam – Cambodia, Cambodia – Vietnam Friendship Year 2022” to mark the 55th anniversary of the establishment of the bilateral diplomatic ties (June 24, 2967 – 2022).
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The visit expected to consolidate Vietnam – Cambodia neighborliness and maintain ASEAN solidarity |
Over the past years, despite difficulties, challenges, and ups and downs in the history, the time-honored traditional friendship between the two neighboring countries, which has been nurtured by generations of their leaders and people, has been continuously consolidated and developed stably.
Notably, in spite of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the good neighborliness, traditional friendship, and comprehensive, long-term, sustainable cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia have maintained positive development momentum in all fields, from politics, defense and security to economy, trade, investment, education-training, science-technology, tourism, people-to-people exchange, and multilateral cooperation.
Meanwhile, the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and related meetings are organized amid the changes in the international and regional situation, posing challenges to peace, security, stability, and prosperous development in the region.
In that context, ASEAN continues to maintain unity and consistency on many issues, achieving positive results in the community building process with 98%, 88.3%, and 72% of action lines in the master plans on the political-security, economic, and socio-cultural pillars having been acted upon, respectively. Together with accelerating the timely completion of the master plans on all the three pillars of the Community by 2025, ASEAN has begun to discuss the ASEAN Community’s post-2025 Vision with the overall orientation of strengthening the ASEAN Community unity, resilience, adaptation, and centrality.
However, there is the fact that ASEAN is also facing many challenges both internally and externally. Therefore, the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and related meetings, which mark the resumption of direct exchanges and dialogues among ASEAN leaders after more than two-year interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be an opportunity for participants to discuss efforts in building the ASEAN Community, strengthening ASEAN's solidarity and centrality, reviewing and orienting ASEAN's relations with its partners, as well as discussing many strategic issues in the region and the world.
It should be noted that this is the first official visit of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to Cambodia since he took office as Prime Minister of Vietnam as well as the first visit of a key Vietnamese leader to the country conducted in the "Vietnam - Cambodia, Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Year 2022.” This is also the first time that Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has directly attended activities of ASEAN leaders and between ASEAN and partners.
With such important meanings, it is strongly believed that Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's official visit to the Kingdom of Cambodia and attendance at the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summit and related meetings will be a great success. The outcomes of the trip will contribute to bringing the Vietnam - Cambodia relations to a new stage of development on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, effective cooperation, respect for each other's interests and showing Vietnam's support to Cambodia as ASEAN Chair 2022.
At the same time, the visit strongly demonstrates the message of a pro-active, active, and responsible Vietnam that works with ASEAN member countries to maintain and strengthen solidarity, unity, the central role of the association, promote mutually beneficial relations between ASEAN and its partners, and harmoniously handle issues confronting ASEAN, contributing to the process of building an ASEAN Community for peace, stability, and prosperous development.
Translated by Tran Hoai