Present at the event were Senior Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA), and Lieutenant General Le Hien Van, Deputy Director of the VPA’s General Department of Politics.

According to a summary report at the conference, the military saw positive developments and obtained significant achievements in international integration and defense external affairs in the past year.

In particular, the defense foreign affairs service has contributed importantly to firmly protecting the Fatherland from distance by peaceful means and facilitated the national construction and defense cause, helping build mutual political trust between Vietnam and other countries, raise the position of the country and military in the region and world, and benefit the building of the military in the current period.

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Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh chairs the conference.

In 2019, delegates agreed that the service should continue to  implement its tasks in line with the Resolution of the 12th Party Congress, closely follow situational developments in the region and the world to give timely recommendations to the Party and State on strategic issues related to national sovereignty and territory as well as defense relations and defense cooperation with foreign countries, and participate actively and proactively in defense cooperation mechanisms within ASEAN.

The service was urged to well prepare for the deployment of the Level-two Field Hospital No.2 and the Military Engineer Company to UN peacekeeping missions, and mobilize other countries to support Vietnam's running for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for the 2020-2021 term.

In addition, the participants laid stress on boosting dissemination of information about defense external affairs; expanding bilateral defense cooperation activities while promoting Vietnam’s initiatives and contribution to multilateral defense forums and meetings. The meeting also pointed out the need to spread information about outcomes of international cooperation in the fields of overcoming war legacy, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and border defense cooperation, as well as about Vietnam's protection of its sovereignty over the seas and islands and its participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

They also underlined the importance of mobilizing resources to prepare for and successfully host military-defense conferences when Vietnam takes over the ASEAN Chair in 2020.

Translated by Van Hieu