Vientiane (VNA) – Lieutenant General Le Duc Thai, Commander of the Vietnam BorderGuard force, held annual talks with Director General of the Lao Border MilitaryDepartment Major General Siphan Phoutthavong in Luang Prabang on October 24.
Both sides agreed to continue on with the border guard cooperation agreement between the Vietnam BorderGuard High Command and the Lao Border Military Department signed on October 16,2018, as well as the legal border documents signed between Vietnam and Laos.
They will work together to enhance border management and protection, conductmutual patrols to detect activities that aim at damaging national border markers, and monitor criminal activities.
The two sides vowed to jointly fight smuggling, trade fraud, drug trafficking, illegal weapons and explosivematerial transactions, human trafficking, cyber fraud, cross-border gambling,and terrorist attacks.
Additionally, they will coordinate to deal with issues related to sabotage attempts, illegal immigration,unauthorised residence, and illegal labour.
The two sidespledged to maintain regular or ad-hoc exchanges of information related toborder management and protection, as well as incidents occurringalong the border.
They will work together to raise public awareness of tactics used by hostile and reactionary forces,and law compliance among residents and adherence tolegal border documents and relevant agreements signed by both sides./.