Minister of National Defence General Phan Van Giang. (Photo: VNA)Giang expressed sincere thanks to theGovernment and people of New Zealand for supporting Vietnam in the fight against COVID-19. Healso informed Henare on Vietnam’s roadmap for staged border reopening post-COVID-19which is expected to pave the way for closer defence relations between Vietnam andother countries, including New Zealand.
The Vietnamese minister said despite COVID-19 impacts, Vietnamand New Zealand has sustained and expanded the bilateral defence ties inaccordance with their signed agreements and the Strategic Partnership for the commonbenefits of each nation and the region.
He highly spoke of the two ministries' efforts in maintaining high-level exchanges and meetings, citing the Vietnam-NewZealand Defence Policy Dialogue held virtually in December 2020 and this phonetalk as examples.
He also appreciated the role and contributions of the NewZealand Ministry of Defence at ASEAN-led multilateral defence-securitymechanisms, particularly the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM ).
Vietnam backs New Zealand to further step up itsStrategic Partnership with ASEAN, including the implementation of an actionplan in defence and security for 2021-2025.
Both sides agreed that there is plenty of room for the bilateraldefence ties to grow further on the basis of the Strategic Partnership. They agreedto request the two ministries to continue making plans for future cooperation,with focus placed on increasing high-level delegation exchanges, establishing dialoguechannels between the two countries’ defence-security officials and scholars, personneltraining, cyber security, search and rescue, and medical studies oncommunicable diseases.
They also plan to effectively implement a memorandum ofunderstanding on defence cooperation in UN peacekeeping missions and soonstart the building of a cooperation plan for the next three years./.
VNA
