Canberra (VNA) – The 7th diplomatic– defence strategic dialogue between Vietnam and Australia, an annual activitysince 2012, took place in Canberra on December 10.

Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the VietnamPeople’s Army Rear Admiral Nguyen Trong Binh and Deputy Minister of ForeignAffairs Nguyen Quoc Dung co-chaired the event with Australia’s Deputy Secretaryof the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Richard Maude and DeputySecretary of the Department of Defence Peter Tesch.

At the dialogue, the two sides reviewed thestrong developments in bilateral relations and reaffirmed their countries’importance in each other’s foreign policies.

They said defence collaboration is an importantpillar in the Vietnam – Australia strategic partnership, agreeing to continueeffectively carrying out bilateral and multilateral defence cooperationactivities on the basis of the 2010 memorandum of understanding on defencecooperation and the 2018 joint vision statement on enhancing defence ties.

Discussing the regional situation, the officialsshared the view that the Asia-Pacific continues to be a region with dynamicdevelopment that attracts the attention of many important partners around theworld.

Regarding the recent East Sea situation, theyhighlighted the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safetyand freedom of navigation and overflight in the waters. They emphasised theneed to resolve disputes by peaceful means in line with international law,including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and theDeclaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, and to promotenegotiations on an effective, substantive and legally binding code of conductin the waters.

Both sides also voiced concern about emergingchallenges like terrorism, cyber security, energy security and climate change.Given this, they agreed to increase information sharing and coordinate closelywithin multilateral and bilateral frameworks to minimise negative impact ofthese challenges.

At the dialogue, Australia affirmed that it willkeep working closely with ASEAN and supporting the bloc’s central role. It isalso ready to assist Vietnam to fulfill the roles as ASEAN Chair in 2020 and anon-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020 – 2021.

After the event, Rear Admiral Nguyen Trong Binhpaid courtesy calls to Chief of the Australian Defence Force General AngusCampbell and acting Associate Secretary of Defence Rebecca Skinner.

He once again thanked Australia for helping withthe transportation of Vietnam’s level-2 field hospital to the UN mission inSouth Sudan.

Meanwhile, the Australian officials alsoreiterated their country’s wish to intensify defence cooperation withVietnam./.