Vietnam, China boost UN peacekeeping-related cooperation

Hanoi, December (VNA) – Vietnamese and Chinese defence officials discussed professional knowledge about and China’s experience in joining United Nations peacekeeping missions at talks in Hanoi on November 30. Colonel Hoang Kim Phung, Director of the Vietnam Peacekeeping Centre, and Colonel Li Xiuhua, deputy head of the Chinese Ministry of National Defence’s Peacekeeping Office, said the talks aimed to implement agreements regarding UN peacekeeping operations between the two defence ministries. The talks focused on promoting Vietnamese military medicine and engineering forces’ capacity of participating in UN peacekeeping activities to prepare for the deployment of Vietnamese officers to suitable missions in the near future. The event also aimed to contribute to friendship and cooperation in UN peacekeeping between Vietnam and China as well as the overarching defence relations, they noted. Since its inception in May 2014, the Vietnam Peacekeeping Centre has dispatched seven officers to the UN missions in South Sudan and the Central African Republic. The country is preparing to deploy the second-level field hospital and a company of engineers to engage in peacekeeping missions when required.