Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with the Deputy Secretary-General and President of the United Nations General Assembly

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with President of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid

At a meeting with President of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highly appreciated the priorities of the 76th UN General Assembly in the fields of sustainable development, post-pandemic recovery, climate change response, and UN reform.

Pursuing a foreign policy of multilateralization, diversification, active and proactive international integration, Vietnam has been actively contributing to the common work of the United Nations, including having just completed the responsibility of a non-permanent member of the Security Council and continuing to run for the Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term and a number of other important UN agencies in the coming time.

Vietnam supports the reform process of the UN to make the organization operate more democratically, transparently, and better respond to global challenges, better meet the requirements of the majority of its members who are developing countries; supports enhancing the important role of the General Assembly and strengthening the relationship of other agencies with the General Assembly.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh shared the Party and State's major policies and guidelines on socio-economic development, response and adaptation to the Covid-19 pandemic in the new normal, and asked the UN to continue to pay attention to promoting priorities to support developing countries in cooperation in transferring technology to produce vaccines and treatment drugs, medical supplies, finance for development, ensuring social security and providing policy advice and experience in recovering from the pandemic in a greener, more sustainable and self-reliant direction.

The Prime Minister affirmed that Vietnam is committed to implementing the commitments made at the COP26 Conference, considering this a key and urgent task; and hopes that the UN will encourage developing countries to fully implement their commitments to support developing countries, especially in terms of climate finance and technology transfer.

UN General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid expressed his impression of Vietnam's outstanding socio-economic achievements and the success in the field of COVID-19 pandemic prevention shared by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, especially the strategy of safe adaptation, recovery and development in a green, sustainable and inclusive direction; congratulated and said that Vietnam is a success story of a country that has overcome many difficulties to achieve many proud and outstanding achievements in socio-economic development and response to the pandemic; is one of the model countries of the UN, has many important contributions to strengthening multilateralism and participating in the work of the UN, especially actively promoting the implementation of global commitments such as implementing the Sustainable Development Goals and responding to climate change.

The President of the General Assembly highly appreciated Vietnam's initiative on the International Day for Epidemic Preparedness on December 27; affirmed its interest in promoting ASEAN-UN cooperation to meet common desires and interests; and made many important contributions to strengthening multilateralism and participating in the work of the UN.

Discussing international and regional issues of mutual concern, the two sides stressed the need to strengthen multilateralism and international cooperation to effectively respond to global challenges, especially pandemics and climate change; shared the desire to soon end the conflict in Ukraine through peaceful solutions, ensuring security and safety of people, facilitating humanitarian access; promoted compliance with the Charter and international law, especially the 1982 UNCLOS, as well as the central role of ASEAN in resolving regional issues.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed

At the meeting with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that 2022 has a special significance, marking 45 years since Vietnam joined the UN - a leading trusted partner for peace, cooperation and development in the world and a trusted and long-term friend of Vietnam in every stage of the country's development. Vietnam pledges to continue to promote its role, make more active and constructive contributions to the common work of the UN in all three pillars of security - politics, development and human rights.

On this occasion, the Prime Minister conveyed to the UN leaders the most sincere and friendly sentiments and deep gratitude of the Government and people of Vietnam for the valuable contributions and support of the UN to Vietnam over the past four decades; and respectfully invited UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN leaders to visit Vietnam this year to strengthen the multifaceted cooperation between Vietnam and the UN.

The Prime Minister said that Vietnam is vigorously and comprehensively implementing three strategic breakthroughs to realize the goal of turning the country into an industrialized, high-income country by 2045; he wished to continue to accompany and provide effective support, including support for the implementation of the National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030.

Discussing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister said that Vietnam has made efforts and successfully implemented a vaccination strategy, promptly shifted to safe and flexible adaptation, effectively controlled the pandemic to open the economy, and focused on socio-economic recovery and development. The Prime Minister asked the UN to continue to pay attention to supporting developing countries in responding to the pandemic, ensuring social security and policy advice, and recovering in a greener, more sustainable, and more self-reliant direction. The Prime Minister affirmed that Vietnam is determined to implement its commitments at the COP26 Conference, and asked the UN to support Vietnam in establishing a partnership on energy transition with G7 countries, and building a climate finance strategy to effectively mobilize support resources from international development partners.

The Prime Minister asked the UN to continue supporting Vietnam in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including goals such as gender equality, clean energy, economic growth and decent work; affirmed that Vietnam will actively participate in discussions and consultations at the UN to consider the implementation of proposals in the UN Secretary-General's Report on Our Common Agenda, thereby promoting current major international agreements. The Prime Minister stated that Vietnam has achieved many positive results in sending forces to participate in UN peacekeeping activities, and asked the UN to increase support for Vietnam in this field, while continuing to cooperate in overcoming the consequences of war in Vietnam, especially in clearing mines left over from the war.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Discussing international and regional issues, the Prime Minister was pleased to see that the ASEAN-UN partnership continues to be strengthened, and asked the UN to support ASEAN's central role in resolving regional issues, including maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea, peacefully resolving disputes on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and supporting Myanmar in stabilizing the situation through dialogue and reconciliation, ensuring safety for people and humanitarian access.

Regarding Ukraine, the Prime Minister affirmed the need to promote dialogue and negotiations to find a lasting peaceful solution on the basis of compliance with the fundamental principles of international law and the UN Charter, respecting and taking into account the legitimate interests of the parties involved, and announced that Vietnam has decided to support 500,000 USD for humanitarian relief activities[1] to support people affected by the conflict in Ukraine and is ready to actively contribute to the diplomatic process, dialogue and negotiations, as well as in reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine.

For her part, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed affirmed that Vietnam is an important partner and friend of the UN and hopes that the two sides will continue to develop the relationship in a more comprehensive and effective manner. The Deputy Secretary-General was very impressed with Vietnam's socio-economic development achievements along with its policies and efforts to safely and flexibly adapt and effectively control the COVID-19 pandemic. She highly appreciated Vietnam's positive and responsible contributions to the common work of the United Nations, especially in its capacity as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2020-2021 term. Vietnam's voice is very important for international solidarity in the context of the world experiencing many crises and differences. Vietnam always has a strong voice supporting multilateralism, peace and UN reform, participating responsibly in the UN peacekeeping force, effectively implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and making efforts to fulfill commitments to combat climate change, especially at the recent COP26 Conference; promoting development cooperation for the common interests of the community.

The Deputy Secretary-General affirmed that the UN will continue to pay attention to and support Vietnam's development priorities towards a greener, more sustainable and self-reliant direction; shared Vietnam's views on many international and regional issues, including the East Sea issue, and hoped that the ASEAN-UN partnership would continue to be strengthened for the sake of peace, security and prosperity in the region and the world, expressing her expectation that Vietnam will strongly promote its role in contributing to solving global issues commensurate with its position and capacity./.