General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Nguyen Phu Trong held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on November 20.

PM Singh affirmed the important significance of the visit in deepening the bilateral strategic partnership after the two nations successfully celebrated the India–Viet Nam Friendship Year on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their diplomatic ties and the fifth anniversary of their strategic partnership.

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Indian PM Manmohan Singh

General Secretary Trong highly valued India’s position and role in the region and the world, affirming that Viet Nam always pays attention to maintaining and developing its traditional friendship and strategic cooperation with India.

In his views, Viet Nam and India will continue to be trustworthy and close friends as they share similar values and interests. The consolidation and strengthening of Viet Nam-India ties is an objective requirement in the new period that matches interests and aspirations of the two peoples.

Both host and guest also talked ways to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership as well as discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest.

They reached consensus on concrete steps to promote cooperation in the five pillars of the strategic partnership. Accordingly, the two nations will strengthen the close and trustworthy political ties as an important foundation for their relationship while increasing all-level visits in the coming time in order to bolster friendship and mutual trust.

Both sides stressed that national defence and security links will continue being a key pillar in the Viet Nam-India strategic partnership.

The two sides agreed to strongly and practically boost economic and trade cooperation to match bilateral potentials and aspirations.

The two countries will make efforts to implement the agreements reached at the 15th meeting of their joint committee on economy, trade and science and technology cooperation, with the aim of bringing two-way trade turnover to 7 billion USD in 2015, and targeting 15 billion USD in 2020.

They also agreed to maintain and expand cooperation in oil and gas exploration and exploitation in Viet Nam ’s territorial waters in the East Sea.

At the meeting, General Secretary Trong and the India PM also discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern.

Both sides reached a consensus that Asia-Pacific is a dynamic region but there are many factors that can cause instability, with territory and land and islands disputes, religious extremism and nationalism seeing complicated development. The situation requires related countries and the international community to raise their responsibility and strive to ensure peace, territorial sovereignty and security for all the countries, maintain an environment of peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region.

The leaders agreed that all disputes on the East Sea should be settled by peaceful means, in line with international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

They pledged the close coordination in their stance and activities on regional and international forums.

General Secretary Trong hailed India’s Look East Policy, and highly valued its boosting of strategic partnership with ASEAN.

He also pledged to support India’s participation in mechanisms where ASEAN play a central role, contributing to maintain the peace, stability, cooperation and development in the Southeast Asia and East Asia region.

Following their talks, the two leaders held a joint press conference and witnessed the signing of eight cooperation documents, namely the Air Service Agreement, an MoU on the establishment of the Indira Gandhi Hi-tech Crime Lab in Hanoi, an agreement on Protection of Classified Information, an MoU between two Ministries of Finance, a cooperation agreement between Hanoi National University and Indian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, an MoU on cooperation between India Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Public Administration, an MoU between Viet Nam Oil and Gas Group and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), and an MOU between the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and Tata Power Ltd. on the development of the 1,320MW Long Phu 2 Thermal Power Project in Soc Trang province, Viet Nam.

Later the same day, PM Manmohan Singh hosted a banquet for General Secretary Trong and the Vietnamese delegation.

(Source: VNA)