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Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang welcomes U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Robert Ben Lobban Wallace. |
Secretary of State for Defense Robert Ben Lobban Wallace leads a high-ranking U.K. defense delegation to pay an official visit to Vietnam from July 21-23 at the invitation of the Vietnamese Minister of National Defense General Phan Van Giang.
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Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang and U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Robert Ben Lobban Wallace at the reception |
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Vietnamese Defense Minister and U.K. Secretary of State for Defense review Guards-of-Honor of the Vietnam People’s Army. |
After the reception, the two high-ranking defense delegations had talks.
The two sides exchanged issues and happenings of mutual concern in the region and world.
The U.K. side shared with Vietnam the views on its approaches to the East Sea (South China Sea) issue, underlining the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight in the waters. The U.K. side also stressed the need to respect international law, saying that all maritime disputes among parties should be settled by peaceful means on the basis of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982.
The two sides agreed that the bilateral relationship has been lifted to a higher level in all fields such as politics, economics, trade, culture and education while the bilateral defense cooperation has seen various fruitful outcomes.
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The two delegations at the bilateral talks |
Regarding defense relations, the two sides have basically completed their cooperation deals in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, the two sides maintained the defense policy dialogue mechanism, delegation exchange, English training for Vietnamese servicepeople, visits of vessels of the U.K. Royal Navy to Vietnam and experience sharing in U.N. peacekeeping operations, which has contributed positively to the development of the U.K. - Vietnam strategic partnership.
The two sides reached consensus on boosting defense cooperation in the time to come with a focus on exchanging delegations, English training for Vietnamese servicepeople and efficient maintenance of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, especially the Deputy-Ministerial Defense Policy Dialogue and the U.K. - Vietnam Defense Working Group. They also consented to strengthen cooperation in hydrography, U.N. peacekeeping operations and defense industry, and to support each other at multilateral forums.
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Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang (2nd from left) at the talks |
The Vietnamese side expressed its support for the U.K. to join the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus on the basis of the ASEAN members’ unanimity, and encouraged the U.K. in expanding cooperation with ASEAN, including defense cooperation.
During the talks, General Phan Van Giang highly appreciated the visit of Mr. Robert Ben Lobban Wallace to Vietnam on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation between Vietnam and the U.K. Particularly, the visit is taking place in the context of the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world and in both countries, which reconfirms the goodwill, effort and determination of the two countries to strengthen the bilateral ties in general and bilateral defense cooperation in particular.
The Vietnamese minister of national defense expressed his belief that the bilateral defense cooperation will further develop in the fields of the two sides’ interest and in accordance with the benefits of each nation.
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U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Robert Ben Lobban Wallace talking with Vietnamese officers returning from U.N. peacekeeping missions |
General Giang also took the chance to thank the U.K. Government for sharing experience in preventing and controlling the pandemic with Vietnam and putting the country on the list of priority recipients of COVID-19 vaccines while asking the U.K. Secretary of State for Defense to support Vietnam to soon have access to COVID-19 vaccines.
For his part, Mr. Robert Ben Lobban Wallace thanked General Phan Van Giang and the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense for the esteemed but warm reception, despite the complicated COVID-19 situation in the country. He also congratulated the Vietnamese defense minister on his recent rank promotion to General.
Within the framework of his visit, the official planned to pay a courtesy call on the Vietnamese Prime Minister, visit the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, the National Border Committee, and have talks with Vietnamese officers returning from U.N. peacekeeping missions.
Translated by Thu Nguyen