Vietnam launches its Peacekeeping Department.

On January 5th, in Hanoi, the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a ceremony to transfer the inter-ministerial working group from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of National Defence and to launch the Vietnam Peacekeeping Department.

Politburo member, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh and Politburo member, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission, and Minister of National Defense Ngo Xuan Lich presided over the handover ceremony.

Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh expressed confidence that the inter-ministerial working group, with its permanent office at the Ministry of National Defense, would continue to achieve many important successes.

The Deputy Prime Minister also outlined several key areas to focus on in the coming period: “With the motto that contributing to international peace and security is also an important contribution to ensuring our own peace, security, and development, I propose continuing to improve the level, organization, and training of our forces, especially their professional competence and foreign language skills, to gradually assume a larger role and successfully fulfill our noble mission in maintaining and building peace. We should also leverage external support resources, especially from the United Nations and other key partners.”

Simultaneously, reorganizing the Vietnam Peacekeeping Center into the Vietnam Peacekeeping Department is a necessary development trend to effectively implement the roadmap of the overall plan for Vietnam's participation in UN peacekeeping operations and is consistent with other countries that deploy forces to participate in UN peacekeeping operations…/.