Vietnam will do more to elevate its result-oriented cooperation with
other countries worldwide and raise its status and role on the
international stage in service of the national socio-economic
development, new Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh has stated.
He made the statement in an interview granted to the media,
focusing on priorities in the State’s external relations in the coming
time, on the sidelines of the National Assembly’s ongoing sixth session
in Hanoi on November 13.
Minh works as both Deputy PM and Foreign Minister and is in charge of foreign relations and global integration.
He said the country will establish partnerships with more major
countries, including world powers, neighbors and those in the Latin
America and Africa in the coming time.
He vowed to
effectively roll out the foreign policy of actively and proactively
integrating with world economies set forth at the 11th National Party
Congress, towards maintaining peace and stability, fulfilling
socio-economic development plans and becoming a modern-oriented
industrial nation by 2020.
Vietnam has set up strategic or
comprehensive partnership with almost major countries in the world,
manifesting improvements in its international role and position and the
efficiency of its policy of being a friend and a trustworthy partner of
the international community, he said.
It has so far entered
strategic partnership with 14 countries. In Southeast Asia, the nation
has fostered special relations with Laos and comprehensive ties with
Cambodia, respectively, apart from its strategic partnership with
Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
Referring to the East Sea
issue, Minh said external activities will help defend national
sovereignty and sovereignty rights and maintain peace and stability in
the waters.
According to him, Vietnam exercises sovereignty
and sovereignty rights over the continental shelf in the East Sea in
accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea.
He added that Vietnam together with ASEAN member
nations are abiding by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the
East Sea and working towards formulating a Code of Conduct in the East
Sea (COC) with China.
As an ASEAN – China relations
coordinator in 2009-2012, Vietnam actively worked together with other
ASEAN member states in building components of the COC, which were agreed
by the bloc’s members.
China has agreed to conduct
negotiations with ASEAN on the COC, however, the process to have the
document signed needs joint efforts from both sides, Minh said.-VNA