Socialist Republic of Vietnam

(VNA) Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung held separate meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, US on April 13, local time.

During his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, PM Dung expressed delights at the fine progresses in bilateral relations between Vietnam and Canada . The two leaders agreed to take concrete measures to further promote the bilateral ties in the future.

Canadian PM Stephen Harper said Canada wants to develop comprehensive relations with Vietnam in all areas, especially in investment and trade as well as to coordinate with the Southeast Asian country in multilateral forums and organisations, especially in 2010 when Canada takes the chair of G8 summit, co-chair of G20 and Vietnam assumes chairmanship of the ASEAN.

Vietnam welcomes Canada ’s decision to join the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) and supports promotion of the ASEAN-Canada relations in various fields, PM Dung confirmed.

In another meeting, PM Dung and Republic of Korea ’s President Lee Myung-bak agreed that Vietnam and the RoK need to increase cooperation bilaterally and multilaterally, especially when Vietnam is the ASEAN chair and the RoK is G20 co-chair.

At his meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, PM Dung emphasised that Vietnam always respects cooperation with the UN and its organisations.

Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon highly valued Vietnam ’s cooperation, especially in the implementation of the One UN initiative. He also commended Vietnam for its achievements in millenium development goals and expressed the wish for Vietnam ’s active participation in the MDG Review Meeting later this year in New York .

In reception of US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, PM Dung highlighted the Vietnam-US relations, saying the ties have seen important progresses, bringing benefits to both sides.

The two countries, he emphasised, need to develop the biletarl relations further in the coming time by maintaining high-level meetings, promoting economic, trade and investment activities, accelerating the implementation of cooperation deals in education and training, Agent Orange/dioxin victims support, climate change response.

Both sides also need to strengthen coordination within the multilateral framework, especially to increase the ASEAN-US ties, PM Dung added.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressed high appreciation of the PM’s participation in the Nuclear Security Summit as well as Vietnam ’s role in current international issues, confirming that the country is always taken as an important partner of the US in the region.

The Secretary of State said the US is keen on increasing coordination with Vietnam within the Sub-Mekong region framework./.