Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Tan Cuong, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army and Deputy Defence Minister, holds talks with General Yoshida Yoshihide, Chief of Staff of the Japan Self-Defence Forces Joint Staff in Japan on October 11. (Photo: qdnd.vn)At the talks, both sides agreed that their defence cooperation has deepened and become more collaborative over the past time.
Japan and Vietnam signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Bilateral Defence Cooperation andExchanges in October 2011, and the Joint Vision Statement on DefenceCooperation towards the next decade in April 2018, which serve as the foundation for bilateral cooperation in the field. The two countrieshave promoted delegation exchange, effectively maintained consultation anddialogue mechanisms, worked together in defence industry and settlement ofpost-war consequences, and supported each other at multilateral forums in theregion, particularly the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM ).
Particularly, both sides joined hands to organise the Competency EvaluationProgramme for Prospective United Nations Peacekeepers (CEPPP) in Vietnam last September, fulfilling the role of co-chairs of the 14th meeting of the Experts’ Working Group onPeacekeeping Operations Cycle 4 for the 2021-2023 period within the frameworkof the ADMM .
Cuong and his Japanese host reached consensus on several measures topromote the bilateral defence ties, with a focus on delegationexchange, maintenance of existing consultation mechanisms, human resourcestraining, implementation of a programme to improve capacity in the fields ofdiving medicine and clearance of naval mines, UN peacekeeping activities, recoveryof post-war consequences, and bolstered coordination at multilateralmechanisms./.
VNA
