PANO – Member of the Standing Committee of the Central Military Commission and Deputy Defence Minister, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh worked with units of the Chemical Corps on February 25th.

At the Headquarters of the Chemical Corps, Commander of the corps, Senior Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tung briefed the Deputy Defence Minister and other members of the visiting delegation on the results of the implementation of the corps’s central mission, the clean-up of toxic chemicals left by wars, and defence external work.

Reports showed that the Chemical Corps frequently provided consultancy to the leadership of the Defence Ministry on management and command of military chemical forces, as well as preventive measures against weapons of mass destruction. Besides, the corps led its subordinate units across the Army in continuously improving the quality of training, combat readiness and maintenance of military chemical assets.

Over the years, the corps also focused on studying effective approaches to deny any possible threats of weapons of mass destruction, as well as surveying and evaluating environmental impacts and dealing with radioactive and chemical contamination left by wars.

Regarding defence external work, the corps provided consultancy to the Defence Ministry and other concerned agencies on international conventions related to weapons of mass destruction, cooperated and effectively assisted Laos and Cambodia in training chemical experts, helped them analyse chemical samples and provided them some equipment.

After listening to the reports, the Deputy Defence Minister asked the corps to focus on its two major functions: giving sufficient consultancy to the Defence Ministry and actively working out effective measures to prevent, respond and deal with contingencies of any hostile use of weapons of mass destruction.

He also instructed the corps to quickly clean up areas with toxic contamination left by wars, especially dioxin (known as Agent Orange), study detoxification technology and boost international cooperation and external ties, contributing to national effort to overcome the aftermath of toxic chemical contamination left by wars.       

Translated by Thu Nguyen