Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh met with Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen and Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan in Singapore on February 5.

Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh (L) meets with Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen on February 5

Vinh is leading a delegation of the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence to the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Retreat on February 5 and 6.

Singaporean Minister Ng Eng Hen highly valued Vietnam’s contributions to military-defence cooperation mechanisms of ASEAN.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister Vinh appreciated host Singapore’ preparations for ASEAN Year 2018, affirming that Vietnam will actively support Singapore to successfully organise military-defence meetings this year for the sake of ASEAN.

At the meeting with the Chinese minister, Vinh said aside from existing fruitful cooperation fields, the Vietnamese Defence Ministry wants to strengthen ties between Military Regions 1, 2 and 3 of Vietnam and the southern military zone of China, between Vietnam’s National Defence Academy and China’s National Defence University, as well as between some Vietnamese academies and appropriate Chinese partners.

Minister Chang said bilateral relations grew positively in 2017 with the mutual visits by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping.

He expressed his belief that in 2018, relations between the two countries, including the two armies, will continue to develop through the implementation of the cooperation activities agreed by their leaders, including exchanging high-level delegations to discuss issues of shared concern.

He also asked for further coordination to enhance Vietnam-China border defence friendship exchanges, particularly the upcoming fifth exchange, so that this cooperation mechanism will reap more and more substantive outcomes.-VNA