PANO - Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of National Defence, and Senior Lieutenant-General Gratien Maire, Deputy Chief of Staff of the French Army, co-chaired the 4th session of the Vietnam-France Joint Committee on Defence Cooperation, organized at the Headquarters of the French Ministry of Defence between November 26th and 28th.

Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh and Senior Lieutenant-General Gratien Maire

Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh held that the promotion of the strategic partnership between Vietnam and France showed their increasing close relationship and paved the way for their cooperation development in various fields, including defence cooperation.

Vietnam considers France an important partner and supports the nation to widen its relations with Asia-Pacific countries, added General Vinh.

The Vietnamese general also underlined that they should turn the bilateral defence cooperation into the pillar of their strategic partnership for the sake of the two peoples and the two armies.

The two sides at the 4th session of the Vietnam-France Joint Committee on Defence Cooperation

For his part, Senior Lieutenant-General Gratien Maire reaffirmed that France always supports and values Vietnam’s commitments to maintaining peace, stability and development in the region and world and hoped that their defence cooperation would play a key role in their strategic partnership.

France is willing to share experience with Vietnam in protecting sovereignty and in obtaining its development goals, said the French general.

At the session, the two sides agreed to foster their bilateral defence ties through exchanges of delegations at all levels, education and training, defence industry, and maritime security, strategic research and close cooperation in multilateral forums. France will continue supporting Vietnam to join the International Hydrographic Organization, conduct UN peacekeeping activities and overcome post-war bomb and mine consequences.

During the time in France, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh visited some units of the French Army.

Translated by Van Hieu