PANO – General Phung Quang Thanh, Minister of National Defence received Rear Admiral Haji Mohd Hanifah, Commander of the Royal Brunei Navy at the Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence on July 2nd.

At the reception, General Phung Quang Thanh welcomed the guest and said that as the 2013 ASEAN Chair, Brunei has been playing an important role in the establishment of the ASEAN Community by 2015.

Photo: Lam Toan

The Minister of National Defence affirmed that the first-ever participation of troops of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) in the 2013 Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief and Military Medicine (HADR/MM) exercise within the cooperation framework of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+) in Brunei last June helped heighten positions and popularize images of the VPA to international friends.

The Vietnamese general also hoped the two nations’ navies will expand their cooperation fields, not only high-ranking delegation exchanges but also programs for young officers as well as joint exercises in response to search and rescue and counter-piracy and anti-terrorism.

For his part, Rear Admiral Haji Mohd Hanifah thanked General Phung Quang Thanh for his warm welcome and briefed on results of his meeting with Admiral Nguyen Van Hien, Deputy Minister of National Defence and Navy Commander. Of which, the two sides agreed on establishing a hotline in order to promptly deal with any circumstances at sea together in the coming time.

He also suggested the Vietnam Ministry of National Defence to provide more Vietnamese training courses in Vietnam for officers of the Royal Brunei Navy as well as create convenient conditions for the next exchanges of their naval troops and ships, making contribution to fostering the friendly ties between Vietnam and Brunei’s peoples and armies in general and navies in particular.

Van Hieu