Lieut. Gen Vu Chien Thang, Director of the Defence Ministry’s Foreign Relations Department, head of the Vietnamese delegation to the ASEAN at the conference.

Lieut. Gen Vu Chien Thang, Director of Vietnam's Ministry of Defence's Foreign Relations Department, presided over the meeting, which was attended by heads of the ADSOM+ WGs of nine other ASEAN members and officials from the bloc's eight dialogue partners – Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the US, along with representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat.

The meeting aimed to enhance practical defence co-operation between ASEAN members and partners within the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+) framework, prepare for the teleconference ASEAN Defence Senior Officials' Meeting Plus (ADSOM+) on July 7, as well as discuss activities of expert groups within the ADMM+ framework, and the host country's ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of ADMM+.

Speaking at the meeting, Lieut. Gen Vu Chien Thang announced the success of the online table-top exercise on COVID-19 response between ASEAN states' medicine military units in May this year, saying it was a practical measure to realise the commitments by member defence ministers' in their statement on COVID-19 response co-ordination adopted in February.

Delegates meet on the sidelines of the conference.

He said the Vietnamese defence ministry hopes co-operation within ADMM and ADMM+ will thrive, demonstrating the role of the defence sector in the fight against the pandemic.

Pham Manh Thang, Deputy Director of Vietnam Ministry of Defence’s Foreign Relations Department, said the conference ended successfully, with all parties ready to contribute despite major differences.

"The participating countries highly valued the proactiveness, robustness and flexibility of Vietnam amidst the complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic," Thang added.

In addition to agreeing on the agenda and technical guarantee for the ADSOM+ Conference, representatives of the countries attending the ADSOM+WG Conference touched on the co-operation programmes within the framework of ADMM+, and agreed to discuss the three-year co-operation plan in the ADMM+ framework and conferences slated to be held in Hanoi in August 2020.

An international defence exhibition and a conference on the role of women in UN peacekeeping efforts, both scheduled to take place in Vietnam, were also discussed at the meeting. — VNS