Union Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh will hold bilateral talks with his Vietnamese counterpart General Phan Van Giang on June 19 to carry forward the India-Vietnam defence cooperation. The Minister of National Defence of Vietnam will be on a two-day visit to India between June 18-19. According to an officials release of the Ministery of Defence, both sides will also exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest.
"The Minister of National Defence of Vietnam will also undertake a cultural visit to Agra, during his stay in India," the release said.
It read, "India and Vietnam share a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Bilateral defence relations form a significant pillar to this partnership. Defence engagements between the two nations have diversified to include wide-ranging contacts between the services, military-to-military exchanges, high-level visits, capacity building and training programmes, cooperation in UN Peacekeeping, ship visits and bilateral exercises."
Stating about Rajnath Singh's 2022 visit to Vietnam, the release added, "During the visit of the Raksha Mantri to Vietnam in June 2022, major overarching guiding documents namely ‘Joint Vision Statement on India-Vietnam Defence Partnership towards 2030’ and a Memorandum of Understanding on ‘Mutual Logistics Support’ were signed that have significantly enhanced the scope and scale of defence cooperation between both the countries."
This comes a month after PM Narendra Modi and Vietnamese PM Pham Minh Chinh held talks in Hiroshima on the sidelines of G7 meet. They discussed different aspects of India-Vietnam friendship, particularly in areas like energy, technology, commerce and defence.