Vietnamese National Defense Minister Pham Van Tra held talks
with his visiting US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld in Hanoi on
Monday, discussing measures to boost the bilateral cooperation and
other issues of mutual concern.
Tra said he welcomes Donald Rumsfeld's visit. He, together with
the US defense secretary, during his trip to the United States in
2003, touched upon issues on beefing up their ties, and this time
they are to continue discussing measures on strengthening their
win-win relations, Tra said.
Donald Rumsfeld, who started his three-day visit to Vietnam on
Sunday, said the visit is his first trip to the country as a US
defense secretary. He, who expressed his happiness to visit
Vietnam, also highly appreciated the country's dynamic
socioeconomic development.
Before arriving in Hanoi, Donald Rumsfeld said one more US navy
ship will visit the country this summer, and that Vietnam will send
local pilots to the United States for English language
training.
The US defense secretary also said that the United States wants
to enhance its military relations with Vietnam, but has no plans to
rent Vietnam's military facilities.
Talking about the bilateral relations, he said the two
countries' military ties are under progress. Vietnam is an
important country in the region and the United States highly
appreciates the relations with it, he noted.
Vietnam is the second leg of Donald Rumsfeld's
several-Asian-nation tour which also includes Singapore and
Indonesia.
Since the normalization of diplomatic relations between Vietnam
and the United States in 1995, cooperation between the two
countries has been improved rapidly, especially in the fields of
politics, economy, healthcare, education, science and technology,
as well as in the fields of drug trafficking and transnational
crimes.
(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2006)
