PANO - Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of National Defence of Vietnam, on March 18th had talks with the Australian Minister for Defence Kevin Andrews.
Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of National Defence of Vietnam.

At the talks, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh and Minister Kevin Andrews hailed the results of comprehensive cooperation between the two ministries including intelligence information sharing, education and training, anti-terrorism, UN peacekeeping operations and agreed to strengthen their cooperation.

Minister Kevin Andrews highly appreciated the preparation and effective participation of Vietnam in the UN peacekeeping operations and wished that Australia would be one of the top partners to support Vietnam in the operations.

The two senior officials agreed that the two defence ministries need to beef up cooperation in maritime security to contribute to peace, stability, navigation security and freedom in the region in line with international laws.

Also at the talks, Deputy Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh extended the greetings and invitation of General Phung Quang Thanh, Vietnamese Minister of National Defence to his Australian counterpart for an official visit to Vietnam. Minister Kevin Andrews accepted the invitation and promised to visit Vietnam soon. He also expressed his wish to hold talks with General Phung Quang Thanh on the sidelines of multilateral for a in the region like Shangri-la Dialogue and ADMM+.

Earlier, Senior Lieutenant General Vinh and Major General John Frewen, Acting deputy Chief of the Australian Defence Force signed an agreement on the implementing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on peacekeeping cooperation between Australia and Vietnam and witnessed the signing of an MOU on mine action and other cooperation documents between Vietnam and Australia.

Translated by Huu Duong