The seventh Vietnam-US Political, Security and Defence Dialogue took place in Hanoi on January 22-23 under the chair of Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Ha Kim Ngoc and US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Puneet Talwar.

During the dialogue, both sides took note of encouraging progress in bilateral ties since the comprehensive partnership was established in July 2013.

They exchanged views on activities to mark 20 years of normalisation of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

They also discussed measures to promote Vietnam-US cooperation in regional and global mechanisms, including those in which ASEAN plays the central role.

The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral relations in the spirit of friendship, mutual respect and trust as well as joint commitments for peace, stability, prosperity and security in Asia-Pacific.

Attention was also paid to ways to enhance collaboration in numerous fields, including maritime security, disaster relief, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fight against drug smuggling, peacekeeping operations and law enforcement issues.

Regarding the East Sea issue, both sides reaffirmed their common interests in maintaining peace, stability and aviation and navigation freedom, as well as in addressing disputes by peaceful diplomatic measures in line with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea while avoiding unilateral provocative acts.

The two sides discussed ways on enhancing defence-security collaboration in the framework of the 2011 MoU on bilateral defence cooperation.

They agreed to continue cooperating in law enforcement at sea, especially in capacity building to cope with disasters and carry out search and rescue, as well as in searching for missing-in-action persons, dealing with Agent Orange/dioxin and removing unexploded ordnance.

The two sides reiterated their intention to cooperate to deal with regional and international security challenges of their common concerns.

The next dialogue will be held in Washington in 2016.-VNA