PANO – During the working visit to Russia by President Truong Tan Sang, Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov received a Vietnamese Defence Ministry delegation, led by Senior Lieutenant-General Truong Quang Khanh, Deputy Defence Minister, on July 28th.

At the reception, Minister Anatoly Serdyukov highly appreciated the working visit of President Truong Tan Sang to Russia and also welcomed the Vietnamese high-ranking military delegation. He believed that this visit will promote their bilateral friendship to comprehensive strategic partnership, including defence cooperation.

As to his part, Senior Lieutenant-General Truong Quang Khanh conveyed best wishes from Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh to Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, and gave him a briefing on key matters of the bilateral defence cooperation relationship mentioned in talks between President Truong Tan Sang and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Both General Khanh and Minister Anatoly Serdyukov agreed that the Vietnam-Russia defence cooperation has actively developed over the past recent years, contributing to tightening two sides’ traditional and comprehensive strategic partnership.

In addition, the two sides’ leaders also discussed the bilateral defence cooperation relationship in the future. Accordingly, they regarded bilateral defence cooperation as a mainstay in the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership. The Russian Defence Ministry will continue to help the Vietnamese Defence Ministry not only approach military science, techniques and technology but also provide more specialized training courses for Vietnamese officers, give relevant equipment to Vietnam to maintain and repair its weapons as well as financial assistance in upgrading the Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centre and so on.

The two sides also unanimously built up a 5-years defence cooperation plan such as sending military delegations to exchange experiences in training and promoting armed forces’ strength in the new situation.

Translated by Van Hieu