(Bqp.vn) - On June 4, Hanoi, Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang received Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Gillian Bird.

General Phan Van Giang and Ambassador Gillian Bird.

At the reception, General Phan Van Giang congratulated Gillian Bird on her appointment as Ambassador and expressed confidence that she would have a successful tenure and make significant contributions to further enhancing defense cooperation between Vietnam and Australia, for the benefit of both countries and for peace, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

Emphasizing that Vietnam values its relationship with Australia, General Phan Van Giang noted that the two countries officially upgrading their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in March 2024 is an important milestone, facilitating further cooperation in various fields, including defense. He praised the results of bilateral defense cooperation based on the Memorandum of Understanding on defense cooperation from 2010 and the Joint Vision Statement on enhancing defense cooperation from 2018, particularly in areas such as delegation exchanges, dialogue and consultation, training, United Nations peacekeeping, military medicine, and war consequence recovery.

At the reception.

General Phan Van Giang stated that the two defense ministries would continue to closely coordinate on several key issues: delegation exchanges, especially high-level ones; maintaining effective periodic dialogue and consultation mechanisms; training; United Nations peacekeeping; sharing experiences between military branches; and mutual support in multilateral defense cooperation mechanisms. The Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense is also ready to continue hosting Australian officers to learn Vietnamese at the Military Science Academy and participating in the Senior Defense Officials Course at the National Defense Academy.

Ambassador Gillian Bird affirmed that the bilateral defense cooperation plays a crucial role in the overall strategic partnership between Vietnam and Australia. She expressed her hope that the two defense ministries would continue to promote the agreed-upon areas of cooperation, particularly in United Nations peacekeeping.