Foreign Minister holds phone conversation with Philippine counterpart

The two diplomats stressed the need to elevate cooperation across all fields, from politics and diplomacy to defense, security, economy, and people-to-people exchanges—making practical contributions to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties this year.

Both sides underscored the importance of promoting all-level delegation exchanges across Party, State, and National Assembly channels, and effectively leveraging bilateral cooperation mechanisms, especially the Viet Nam–Philippines Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation, while striving to soon achieve the trade goal of over US$10 billion.

Given the current global context, ASEAN needs to maintain regular information exchange, join hands to cope with challenges, and demonstrate unity, centrality, resilience, and the capacity to address emerging issues and new challenges, they underlined.

Le affirmed that Viet Nam supports the Philippines in successfully undertaking its role as the ASEAN Chair in 2026, as well as the priorities of the ASEAN Chairmanship Year under the theme "Steering Towards a Shared Future".

He highly appraised the Philippines' role in chairing and leading key ministerial meetings held since the beginning of 2026, as well as its efforts in promoting a responsible voice and common approach of ASEAN in response to the escalating tensions in the Middle East, including the issuance of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Statement and the recent virtual Special Meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers./.