Foreign Minister meets Irish President

This is the first offficial visit of a Vietnamese Foreign Minister to Ireland over the last 20 years.

President Higgins expressed his belief that the visit would deepen the friendship and multi-faceted relations between the two countries.

Ireland places importance to the status and role of Viet Nam in its strategy with the Asia-Pacific region, he emphasized.

He vowed to step up cooperation and bilateral linkages across all sectors, especially in fields of economics, people-to-people links, education and training.

The President consented with Bui's viewpoints on fostering coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums, addressing disputes via peaceful means in line with the UN Charter and international law.

He underlined the need to work closely to cope with global challenges such as climate change, and food security to make contributions to each side's sustainable development goals, peace, cooperation and development in the region and the world.

For his part, Bui asserted that Viet Nam wishes to strengthen friendship and multi-faceted relations with Ireland.

He expressed his wish that the Irish President will advocate both sides to increase all-level delegation exchanges and raise his voice to urge the Parliament of Ireland to soon ratify the EU-Viet Nam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA).

Bui suggested both countries promote cooperation in education and training, firstly granting more scholarships for Vietnamese students, enhancing linkages between the two countries' universities, and expanding cultural and artistic exchanges, and local-to-local links.

The diplomat took the occasion to recommend the Irish President continue supporting Viet Nam as a prioritized partner in his country's development cooperation policy in the upcoming time, assisting the nation in human resource development, digital transformation and high-tech agriculture./.