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General Ngo Xuan Lich delivered a welcome speech to the ADSOM + Conference (Photo: Baoquocte)

The ADSOM + online conference was attended by General Ngo Xuan Lich, Minister of Defense of Vietnam.

The conference was chaired by Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of Defense of Vietnam, Chief of Vietnam ADSOM Working Group. Attending the conference were the ADSOM leaders of 9 ASEAN nations and 8 partners (Russia, China, United States, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India), their delegates, and the ASEAN Deputy General Secretary.

On his opening remark, General Ngo Xuan Lich emphasized that the Covid-19 pandemic was a complicated non-traditional security challenge, negatively affecting all aspects of social life over the world that can not be handled by any single country alone. Therefore, all nations must stay collaborated to deal with this crisis. In particular, it is essential to promote the role of multilateral organizations and mechanisms.

Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh affirmed that Vietnam appreciated cooperation within ADMM and ADMM+ (Photo: Baoquocte)

Sharing with the difficulties faced by ASEAN member countries, as well as the other countries, Minister Ngo Xuan Lich claimed "with cooperated efforts, we will together overcome the traumatic period and soon normalize all aspects of life".

Also on the opening ceremony, Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of Defense of Vietnam, Chief of ADSOM Vietnam affirmed that the Ministry of Defense of Vietnam highly appreciated cooperation within the framework of ADMM and ADMM+. Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh also took this occasion to express his aspiration that military attaches from all attending nations would act as bridges to enhance cooperation within ASEAN as well as between ASEAN and its partners.

Due to COVID-19 impact, ADSOM+ Conference took place via online platforms (Photo: Baoquocte)

As planned, in 2020, ADSOM+ will be held in August right after the ADSOM conference to prepare for ADMM and ADMM+, which are planned to take place in October. However, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, regarding consultation of ADMM + countries, the Ministry of Defense of Vietnam decided to hold an additional online ADSOM+ meeting on July 7 to promptly exchange opinions between countries about the recent global and regional security situation in the context of Covid-19 and post-Covid-19, as well as promoting the work of ADMM + in 2020

The conference took place to promote substantive defense cooperation between ASEAN and partner countries within the framework of ADMM+; sharing perspectives on the global and regional situation in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the experience of the countries' military in disease response. At the same time, the countries exchanged contents of the work being implemented under the framework of ADMM+, as a basis to prepare for the offline ADSOM/ ADSOM+ Conference in Vietnam in August 2020 and ADMM/ ADMM+ planned to take place at the end of this year.

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