Vietnam will do more to elevate its result-oriented cooperation with other countries worldwide and raise its status and role on the international stage in service of the national socio-economic development, new Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh has stated.
He made the statement in an interview granted to the media, focusing on priorities in the State’s external relations in the coming time, on the sidelines of the National Assembly’s ongoing sixth session in Hanoi on November 13.
Minh works as both Deputy PM and Foreign Minister and is in charge of foreign relations and global integration.
He said the country will establish partnerships with more major countries, including world powers, neighbors and those in the Latin America and Africa in the coming time.
He vowed to effectively roll out the foreign policy of actively and proactively integrating with world economies set forth at the 11th National Party Congress, towards maintaining peace and stability, fulfilling socio-economic development plans and becoming a modern-oriented industrial nation by 2020.
Vietnam has set up strategic or comprehensive partnership with almost major countries in the world, manifesting improvements in its international role and position and the efficiency of its policy of being a friend and a trustworthy partner of the international community, he said.
It has so far entered strategic partnership with 14 countries. In Southeast Asia, the nation has fostered special relations with Laos and comprehensive ties with Cambodia, respectively, apart from its strategic partnership with Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
Referring to the East Sea issue, Minh said external activities will help defend national sovereignty and sovereignty rights and maintain peace and stability in the waters.
According to him, Vietnam exercises sovereignty and sovereignty rights over the continental shelf in the East Sea in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
He added that Vietnam together with ASEAN member nations are abiding by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and working towards formulating a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) with China.
As an ASEAN – China relations coordinator in 2009-2012, Vietnam actively worked together with other ASEAN member states in building components of the COC, which were agreed by the bloc’s members.
China has agreed to conduct negotiations with ASEAN on the COC, however, the process to have the document signed needs joint efforts from both sides, Minh said.
Source: VNA