Vietnam, New Zealand prepare to upgrade ties to strategic partnership
(VOVWORLD) - Vietnam and New Zealand have pledged to work more closely to address non-traditional security threats and strengthen cooperation at international forums.
 Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of the Vietnamese delegation to the 11th Vietnam-New Zealand political consultation and the 2019 annual ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue. |
The two sides reached the consensus during their 11th political consultation and the annual ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue which wrapped up in Wellington on Tuesday. New Zealand reaffirmed its support for Vietnam’s ASEAN Chair in 2020 and bid for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for the 2020-2021 term. The two sides agreed to continue high-level visits and exchanges as they prepare to elevate bilateral ties to a strategic partnership.
New Zealand said it backs ASEAN’s central role in building an open, transparent, inclusive, and law-based regional structure, and promised to cooperate with ASEAN in developing human resources, responding to climate change, and fighting terrorism and extreme violence.
New Zealand and ASEAN reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea and not militarizing the region, thereby complicating the situation. They underlined the need to settle disputes with respect to international law including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.