Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong has suggested the diplomatic sector should work hand in hand with defense and security agencies to carry out effectively external activities for deeper international integration.

In a speech delivered at the 29th Diplomatic Conference that opened in Hanoi on August 22, the Party chief pointed out positive results, limitations, and lessons learnt by the diplomatic sector over recent years and outlined orientations and tasks that should be focused in the coming time to successfully realise the 12th National Party Congress resolution. 

He highlighted the development of Vietnam’s diplomatic sector over the past seven decades and lessons learned which include combining national and international strength, harmonizing national interests with international obligations, being persistent with principles and flexible with strategies, enhancing consensus within the Party, army, and the people, promoting Party leadership and State management.

The Party leader underlined the point that the external work is a motivation to realize Vietnam’s two strategic missions of building and safeguarding the nation. 

“We need to focus on promoting our relationship with neighboring and major countries and traditional friends and enhance ASEAN’s central role. We should be persistent with strengthening cooperation on the basis of respecting independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference to each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit. 

The diplomatic sector needs to combine people-to-people diplomacy with culture, art, information, and communication sectors, and bring into play the nation’s soft strength," he said.

He emphasised the need to have a thorough grasp of leaders’ directions on the relationship between cooperation and fighting to safeguard the country’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, protect national interests and maintain a peaceful and cooperative environment for development. 

At the conference, leaders of the Ministries of Defence and Public Security, the Party Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations, the National Assembly Committee for External Affairs, and the Vietnam Union of Friendship Associations delivered speeches on assessments on the regional and world situations as well as measures to better external activities.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said the 29th Diplomatic Conference running until August 26, will review the diplomatic work over the past five years in the 11th Party tenure and the two-year implementation of the 28 th conference’s action programme, and propose measures to effectively use tools of diplomacy so as to promote sustainable development and enhance Vietnam’s position in the global production and supply chains.