President Truong Tan Sang and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have agreed to promote comprehensive strategic cooperation as stated in a joint statement following their talks on Friday.

In the joint statement, the two sides would promote political dialogues at all levels and strengthen bilateral ties, including people’s diplomacy and youth exchanges. They agreed on measures to raise bilateral trade turnover to 5 billion dollars by 2015.

President Putin highly valued Vietnam’s role in activities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and other regional and international links.

Vietnam and Russia issue joint statement following Presidents’ talks (Photo: Internet)

President Sang voiced support for Russia’s strategic policy to unceasingly strengthen its position in Asia and the Pacific for the sake of peace and sustainable development in the region.

The two sides supported the establishment of an open, transparent, fair and cooperative security architecture in the region built on international law’s provisions and principles of non-alliance and consideration of legitimate interests of all countries.

Vietnam and Russia affirmed their determination to increase coordination to cope with new challenges and risks threatening security and sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region, firstly within the framework of the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting plus dialogue partners.

The two sides held that territorial disputes and other disputes in the Asian-Pacific space should be solved only by peaceful measures without the use of force or the threat to use force, based on the existing international law, particularly the UN Charter and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

They support the full implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and the approach to the building of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea at an early date.

Vietnam and Russia affirmed the policy of expanding the cooperation within the framework of ‘Asia-Europe dialogue forum’, conference on interaction and confidence-building measures in Asia (CICA) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).