External activities need to be further improved in order to defend the country’s supreme interests, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has said in an interview granted to the media.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh

The interview took place on the threshold of the 29th Diplomatic Conference and the 18th National Conference on External Relations scheduled for August 21-26 in Hanoi. The events are seeking to raise the efficiency of diplomacy and international integration to successfully realise the 12th National Party Congress resolution.

As the first of its kind to take place after the 12th National Party Congress, the 29th Diplomatic Conference will review the diplomatic work over the past five years in the 11th Party tenure so to come up with lessons and identify a new mindset and new implementing methods that would help the diplomatic sector accomplish external guidelines set forth at the 12th National Party Congress.

The conference will seek to deal with fresh opportunities and challenges stemming from the global area and the country’s strategic areas as these are affecting directly the national interests and growth.

Since maintaining a peaceful and stable environment for national development will continue to be the diplomats’ key tasks, the conference aims to adopt a comprehensive change in the mindset of running external activities, especially the thought of using diplomacy to spur the country’s growth, Minh said.

As taking place together, the 29th Diplomatic Conference and the 18th National Conference on External Relations will enable localities nationwide to keep up with overall developments in the region and beyond so they would together devise measures to carry out external activities in a uniform manner from central to grassroots levels, Minh stressed.

Looking back the country’s external work and international integration over the years, he stated that the external work has contributed to maintaining the peaceful and stable environment favourable for development and deepening the relations with other countries in a result-oriented manner.

The work has also contributed greatly to efforts to accomplish the national socio-economic development goals, and firmly defend the national security as well as territorial, islands and sea sovereignty.

The diplomatic sector “has proactively joined in building and shaping a common playing rule” on the multilateral stage while defending and promoting effectively the country’s strategic security and development interests, and proving the country as “a responsible member of the international community,” Minh elaborated.

Guidelines and policies have been adopted to support Overseas Vietnamese in securing their legal status, through which the national unity bloc has been reinforced and more resources have been rallied for the national development, he said.

Moving forward, the 29th Diplomatic Conference will seek to set international integration as the cause of the entire people and the whole political system.

It will outline approaches and measures to deepen the country’s relationship with other countries, especially prioritized partners, in a sustainable fashion, on the basis of international law, equality, mutual benefit, thus safeguarding the nation’s supreme interests.

He stressed that the conference will define the diplomatic sector’s future contributions to implementing productively the extensive international integration to create opportunities spurring the country’s economic capacity and aggregate strength to pursue a comprehensive reform for people’s quality living standards.

The diplomatic sector will seek to work closely with the defence and public security forces in protecting the country’s independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, along with ensuring the living environment is peaceful and stable for development and the socialist regime.

Multilateral diplomacy will become one of the pillars of the external work in the coming years, Minh said in conclusion.

VNA