PANO - Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of National Defence on June 14th met with heads of overseas Vietnamese representative offices for the 2016-2019 term at the Ministry’s headquarters.

On behalf of the Ministry’s leaders, the general congratulated ambassadors and consuls general on their new assignments by the Party and the State and introduced several new developments on defence external relations to help them further understand the task.

He affirmed that activities of defence external relations, over the past years, have been carried out as planned and practically achieved thanks to close coordination between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and National Defence, especially the high sense of responsibility and enthusiastic support of members of Vietnamese embassies and consulates general overseas.

The meeting

Through defence external affairs, Vietnam has stepped up its friendly ties and cooperation with other countries, contributing to upholding independence, sovereignty, national unification, and territorial integrity as well as national interests, and to enhancing the nation’s combat capabilities and defence strength to help improve its role and status in the international arena.

The senior officer wished the newly appointed heads of the overseas representative offices to cooperate closely with Vietnamese defence attachés overseas to well implement the task, making contributions to the general achievements in the Party and the State’s work of external relations.

On behalf of the newly-appointed diplomats, Mr. Duong Chi Dung, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Head of the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland thanked the general for his warm reception and spoke highly of defence external relations over the past time.

The diplomat hoped the two ministries would continue their united cooperation and mutual assistance in carrying out the tasks of defence external relations and external relations of the Party and the State successfully as well as well coordinate whenever any missions from the Ministry of National Defence have visits to the countries where members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are accredited.

On the afternoon of the same day, the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO) organized a meeting with those diplomats.

At the meeting, VUFO Chairman Vu Xuan Hong believed that during their tenure, the diplomats would have more activities to boost friendly ties and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, effectively contributing to the Party’s and the State’s diplomatic work in general and the people-to-people diplomacy in particular.

Translated by Mai Huong