Mutual trust between Hanoi, Moscow is basis for development

The relations of traditional friendship and overwhelming cooperation between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Russian Federation, which have a big history, have been improving and developing increasing the width and depth of the bilateral cooperation’s directions, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in an exclusive interview with Itar-Tass on the eve of his official visit to Russia, due on May 12-15. “The high level of trust in the bilateral relations is the basis of their development,” the prime minister said. “The very fact that in July 2012 the summit made a decision to develop the relations to the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Russia to the level of an overwhelming strategic partnership is an important benchmark in the history of the two countries’ cooperation, which reflects new trends in its development.” The political contacts between Hanoi and Moscow have been improving, they are characterised by a high level of reliability and mutual trust, he continued saying. “This favours further effective use of the existing mechanisms of cooperation, like the bilateral intergovernmental commission on the trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, the strategic dialog on the foreign policy, security and defence, the regular consultations between foreign ministries,” Nguyen Tan Dung said. Vietnam and Russia are paying major attention to exchange of visits at various levels, they favour development of contacts between ministries, sector authorities, regional and peoples of the two countries. Speaking about the cooperation between Vietnam and Russia on the international arena, the prime minister stressed Hanoi and Moscow had been sharing common views on basic issues of the international and regional policies. The two countries cooperate and support each other actively in international affairs, especially in the framework of the United Nations Organisation and on the platforms of leading forums - Asia-Europe / ASEM /, the Association of South-East Asia / ASEAN /, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation / APEC /, and the Summit of the East Asian Community / EAC /