Vietnam’s top leader concludes Mongolia visit, heads to Ireland

Vietnam's Party chief and State President To Lam and his entourage left Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday, concluding their two-day state visit to Mongolia and heading to Ireland for a state visit at the invitation of Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

During his stay in Mongolia, Lam held talks with President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, met with Chairman of the Parliament Dashzegviin Amarbayasgalan and Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, and attended the opening of the Vietnam Cultural Day 2024.

He also visited the Inter-Level School No 14 named after President Ho Chi Minh, met with staff from the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese community in Mongolia, and representatives from several Mongolian business organisations.

Throughout their meetings, the leaders from both countries highly valued the Vietnam-Mongolia traditional friendship spanning over seven decades. They engaged in extensive discussions on the future development of bilateral relations, as well as global and regional issues of mutual interest.

The Mongolian side affirmed that they always consider Vietnam an important partner in Southeast Asia and expressed a desire to further expand mutually beneficial cooperation across various areas.

Vietnam, in turn, underscored the importance of developing its relations with Mongolia, respecting Mongolia’s peace-loving, open, independent, and multi-pillar foreign policy, as well as its "third neighbor" policy. Vietnam also wished to further strengthen bilateral ties in the coming time.

The leaders agreed that deepening and developing Vietnam-Mongolia ties match the shared interests of their people and make a significant contribution to ensuring peace, stability, and development in the region and the world. They concurred on the need to upgrade their relations to a comprehensive partnership and further expand collaboration.

Both sides vowed to facilitate the exchange of all-level delegations through the Party, State, Government, and National Assembly channels.

They also vowed to support the policy of expanding close relations between the people of both countries and exploring the possibility of establishing new cooperation mechanisms among the two nations' ministries, sectors, and localities.

A commitment to extending collaboration in national defence-security, law enforcement, economy-trade-investment, agriculture, science, transportation, culture, sports, tourism, education, labour, environment, and social welfare was also made, along with enhancing global and regional cooperation.

Both sides signed seven memoranda of understanding on cooperation between relevant ministries and units.

The visit played a crucial role in guiding and opening up new prospects for the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

The Vietnamese top leader's visit to Mongolia came as the two countries celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the bilateral relationship is at its best, according to Deputy Prime Minister cum Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son.

Lam’s trip to Ireland will be the first state visit since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1996.

After the visits to Mongolia and Ireland, Lam will attend the 19th Francophonie Summit and make an official visit to France. Vietnam and France celebrated 50 years of relations and the 10th anniversary of a strategic partnership in 2023.

Before the Mongolia visit, Lam had wrapped up a working trip to the U.S. to attend the United Nations Summit of the Future and the 79th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 79) and a state visit to Cuba.

On August 18-20, Lam paid a state visit to China and met with the highest leaders of the neighboring nation. This was his first trip abroad after becoming the Party chief in early August.