Foreign Minister: Vietnam ready to join post-quake reconstruction in Turkey

Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son (R) and Turkish Ambassador to Vietnam Haldun Tekneci (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is ready to join reconstruction efforts in earthquake-hit areas in Turkey, Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son told Turkish Ambassador to Vietnam Haldun Tekneci during a reception in Hanoi on February 17.

At the event, Son also conveyed Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s letter of sympathy to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the ambassador and informed him about what Vietnam has been doing to help Turkey overcome the consequences of the disaster.

He asked Turkish authorities to continue creating favourable conditions and ensure the safety of the Vietnamese search and rescue teams as well as citizens living there.

Ambassador Tekneci, for his part, said the Turkish Government and people are deeply moved by the friendship and support shown by their Vietnamese counterparts. They highly appreciate Vietnam's first-ever deployment of search and rescue teams with a donation of 100,000 USD to Turkey. This is seen as evidence of the friendship, cooperation and mutual support between the two countries in difficult times.

He affirmed that Turkey always values relations with Vietnam and will do its best to lift bilateral ties to a greater height.

As the two nations are celebrating the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties, both sides agreed to facilitate the exchange of delegations at all levels, jointly hold economic and cultural events, strengthen people-to-people exchanges, toward further deepening bilateral friendship and cooperation.

Regarding the earthquake on February 6, Son previously cabled messages of condolences to his Turkish and Syrian counterparts Mevlut Cavusoglu and Faisal al-Mekdad.

The same day, the Vietnamese Embassy in Turkey and representatives of the Ministry of Public Security’s search and rescue team visited and presented gifts to a Vietnamese family in Adiyaman city.

Following the Foreign Ministry’s directions, the Vietnamese embassies in Turkey and Syria will continue to closely follow the situation and actively work with the host authorities and Vietnam’s working delegations to offer the best support to search and rescue work, contributing to the Vietnamese Government’s common efforts to help the two nations recover from the disaster./.