Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s visit is an important landmark for the bilateral relations between the two countries, top Russia legislators said during their separate meetings with the Vietnamese Party chief in Moscow on November 24.

Chairwoman of Russia’s Federation Council (Upper House) Valentina Matvienko and the Acting Chairman of the Russian State Duma (Lower House) Ivan Ivanovich Melnikov said the visit will concrete and deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and Russia.

The two sides discussed the current situation of their countries and Vietnam-Russia relations as well as regional and international issues of mutual concerns.

The Party General Secretary and the two Russian leaders agreed that Vietnam-Russia relations in general as well as the relations between the two national assemblies in particular have developed through high-ranking visits of leaders from both sides.

The Vietnamese National Assembly has signed cooperation agreements with the Russian Federation Council and the Russian State Duma.

Such agreements have created an important legal foundation for the enhancement of bilateral cooperation and exchange of law-making experience, supervision, documents and information.

The Russian hosts stressed that though there are different political parties in the two houses, all parties in Russia support friendly and comprehensive cooperation with Vietnam.

Sharing the Vietnamese leader’s opinion on the East Sea issue, the Russian legislators said that all Asia-Pacific disputes need to be solved by peaceful measures, based on international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The two sides agreed to realise cooperation agreements soon through action plans among parliamentary friendship groups, boost exchanges between high-ranking officials and committees, enhance supervision of the implementation of agreements signed between the two governments and support negotiations on the signing of a free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

They also agreed to support each other in creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese in Russia and Russian in Vietnam and work closely together at the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF).-VNA