The online meeting also saw the participation of ambassadors and defense attachés of the two countries.
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Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh at the event |
During the event, General Vinh informed his South African counterpart about the COVID-19 prevention and control situations in Vietnam, affirming the core and pioneering role of the whole political system as well as the Vietnam People’s Army in the success of the fight against the pandemic.
He also underscored the importance of international cooperation in the COVID-19 combat, adding Vietnam is willing to share experience in COVID-19 prevention and control with South Africa via teleconferences, as it successfully held with other military medical forces before.
The Vietnamese deputy defense minister also briefed the participants on the Vietnamese peacekeepers’ achievements in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic at U.N. missions in Africa. Therefore, the U.N. and the native people have acknowledged and appreciated the great efforts of the staff at the Level-two Field Hospital Rotation 2 of Vietnam.
For his part, Deputy Minister Thabang Makwetla hailed the success of Vietnam in the COVID-19 fight, hoping that Hanoi will share more experience in this field to help Cape Town defeat the pandemic soon.
On this occasion, General Vinh and his South African counterpart reviewed the bilateral defense cooperation over the past time and rolled out missions in the coming time. They both pledged to overcome all difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in order to beef up cooperation in many fields, such as education and training, network security, U.N. peacekeeping, military medicine, and defense industry.
Especially, amid the complicated development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two sides agreed to boost military medical cooperation in disease prevention and control as part of cooperation in dealing with non-traditional security challenges. In addition, the two sides committed to maintaining defense policy dialogue mechanism to share issues of mutual concern and work out solutions to further promote their defense relations.
Regarding the multilateral cooperation agreement, the Vietnamese deputy defense minister informed the leader of the South African Ministry of Defense and Military Veterans about procedures to organize a series of important activities and events as Hanoi takes on its role as the 2020 ASEAN Chair and non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021, contributing to affirming the role and responsibility of the country in addressing issues of common concern in the region and the world.
General Vinh took this occasion to invite leaders of the South African Ministry of Defense and Military Veterans to take part in the host country’s reception programs, hoping that South Africa would support Vietnam to fulfill its missions in the coming time.
Deputy Minister Makwetla highly praised the position and role of Vietnam in the international and regional arenas, emphasizing that South Africa would back Vietnam’s initiatives to make contributions to peace, stability, and development of the region and the world.
Translated by Minh Anh