Outgoing Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Pham Quang Vinh has bid farewell to local officials and friends before returning home and concluding his mission in the US in late June 2018.

Ambassador Vinh last week made a visit to US Secretary of Defence James Mattis who affirmed that the US always attaches importance to strengthening comprehensive partnership with Vietnam in all fields, including security-defence.

Earlier, Vinh met with former US Secretary of State John Kerry in Massachusetts State. He thanked Kerry for being a friend of Vietnam who has exerted great efforts to strengthen the Vietnam-US relations.

Ambassador Vinh also had meetings with some US officials, including special Assistance to the President on Asia Matt Pottinger and Senator Jim Webb. 

On May 21, Ambassador Vinh hosted a reception at the Vietnamese Embassy in the US to bid farewell to officials from the US administration and parliament as well as businesspersons, scholars and friends, including Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton.

The US sides highly valued the Vietnam-US comprehensive partnership’s growth over the past years in all areas from politics, diplomacy and security to economics, science-technology, education, and people-to-people exchange, as well as in regional and international issues of shared concern and the strengthening of cooperation between ASEAN and the US.

Thornton thanked Ambassador Vinh for coordinating with the US side, building trust and a wide network of friends, as well as consulting and seeking measures to promote bilateral cooperation, thus contributing to bolstering the Vietnam-US ties as well as the ASEAN-US partnership.

At the meetings, Ambassador Vinh thanked the US side for supporting him and the Vietnamese Embassy in fulfilling missions, contributing to strengthening bilateral relations in all areas.

Ambassador Vinh assumed his post as Vietnamese Ambassador to the US from late November, 2014. Over the past three years, the Vietnam-US relationship saw progress with numerous high-level visits, including the visit to the US by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong in July 2015, the US visit by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in May 2017, and the Vietnam visits by President Donald Trump in November 2017 and President Barack Obama in May 2016.

The US lifted the ban on the sale of lethal weapon to Vietnam in May 2016 and transferred the US Hamilton-class coast guard cutter to Vietnam in March 2017, while the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson visited Da Nang port for the first time in March 2018. Fullbright University in Vietnam was launched in Vietnam.-VNA