The activities included the official welcoming ceremony and talks hosted by Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, the reception hosted by Party General Secretary and State President To Lam, and a ceremony to confer the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun on former Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh and former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, attended by the Vietnamese and Japanese Prime Ministers.
On the occasion, General Phan Van Giang met with Kano Koji, Japanese Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs.
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General Phan Van Giang, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense meets with Japanese Vice Minister of Defense Kano Koji. |
At the meeting, General Phan Van Giang expressed his satisfaction at the continued development of Vietnam–Japan defense cooperation. The two sides have maintained delegation exchanges, defense policy dialogue mechanisms, and consultations between their respective naval, ground, and air forces. Cooperation in officer exchanges, training, cybersecurity, and post-war consequence mitigation has been implemented effectively and practically.
General Phan Van Giang thanked the Japanese Government for its active support to Vietnam in addressing war consequences, including unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance and dioxin remediation. He proposed that both sides continue to promote bilateral defense cooperation, focusing on high-level exchanges, maintaining the deputy ministerial-level defense policy dialogue mechanism, and expanding cooperation between respective services, in training, military medicine, war legacy settlement, and United Nations peacekeeping operations.
General Phan Van Giang conveyed his regards to Japan’s Minister of Defense and cordially invited leaders of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, the Japan Self-Defense Forces, and defense industry enterprises to attend the third Vietnam Defense Expo, slated for December 2026.
For his part, Vice Minister of Defense Kano Koji affirmed that Vietnam–Japan defense cooperation has achieved substantive results in recent years. He expressed his hope that General Phan Van Giang would continue to create favorable conditions for both sides to effectively implement agreed areas of cooperation, maintain delegation exchanges and annual mechanisms such as defense policy dialogues and service-level consultations, contributing to deepen the bilateral defense relations between the two sides.
Translated by Trung Thanh