New Delhi: India and Vietnam, the countries troubled by China, today embarked on a path to give a major boost to their defence ties as they signed a Partnership agreement in this field and a pact to provide logistics support in military aspects.
These marked the highlights of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Vietnam where he held detailed talks on defence cooperation with his counterpart General Phan Van Giang.
Wide-ranging discussions on effective and practical initiatives to further expand bilateral defence engagements and regional & global issues were held between the two sides, said an official statement issued here.
After their talks, the two Defence Ministers signed a ‘Joint Vision Statement on India-Vietnam Defence Partnership towards 2030’, which will significantly enhance the scope and scale of existing defence cooperation, it said.
A Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Logistics Support was also inked in the presence of both the Ministers, the statement said.
In these times of increasing cooperative engagements between the defence forces of the two countries, this is a major step towards simplifying procedures for mutually beneficial logistic support and is the first such major agreement which Vietnam has signed with any country, it said.
Both Ministers also agreed for early finalisation of $US 500 million Defence Line of Credit extended to Vietnam.
These outcomes are very significant considering the fact that both the countries face trouble from China.
