Vietnam hosts meeting of ASEAN Peacekeeping Centers Network
The three-day event aims to affirm Vietnam's role and responsibility and raise its international position in the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping cooperation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
The eighth meeting of the ASEAN Peacekeeping Centers Network (APCN) opened in Hanoi on June 13.
Present at the event were Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army Senior Lieutenant General Phung Si Tan; Director of the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations (VNDPKO) Senior Colonel Pham Manh Thang; representatives of the APCN members, the ASEAN Secretariat, embassies, and defense attaché offices of ASEAN member states in Vietnam.
As the APCN Chair, Vietnam succeeded in virtually organizing an APCN meeting in 2021 amid heavy impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the eight edition was held offline.
Vietnam’s hosting of the two consecutive meetings of the APCN in its capacity as the network’s chair has made direct contribution to maintaining APCN’s motivation, and helping enhance cooperation to improve competence of the network’s members, thus effectively engaging in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Addressing the meeting, Gen. Tan stressed that the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense highly appreciated the importance and significance of the eight edition. This is an opportunity for Vietnam and APCN members to exchange expertise, experiences, lessons, and initiatives on training and preparing for the deployment of peacekeeping forces.
They also discussed measures to promote collaboration and sharing of training resources and efficiency of task performance at U.N. peacekeeping missions, practically contributing to the joint peacekeeping efforts of the international community.
Given Vietnam’s achievements over the past nine years of participating in U.N. peacekeeping operations, Gen. Tan underlined that Vietnam’s outstanding and impressive accomplishments have been highly recognized and praised domestically and internationally. He added that since June 2014, the Vietnam People’s Army has sent 533 troops to U.N. missions in South Sudan, Central Republic of Africa, Abyei, and U.N. headquarters.
He attributed part of Vietnam’s successes in the field to the training and improvement in capability building through partnerships and international cooperation.
According to Gen. Tan, Vietnam has, over the past years, received great support and enthusiastic partnerships from regional partners and friends via bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms, helping enhance the country’s capability in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Speaking highly of the APCN members’ support and cooperation spirit, Gen. Tan asked them to continue to promote the effectiveness of the APCN cooperation mechanism so as to bolster the partnerships on training peacekeeping forces within ASEAN, thus building the ASEAN community and substantively and effectively contributing to the actualization of U.N. peacekeeping duties for regional and global peace, cooperation and development.
The Vietnamese official said that in this meeting, members should further discuss and develop measures to realize the action plans on ASEAN peacekeeping partnership and ASEAN peacekeeping staff-command exercise in the framework of APCN to enhance the coordination and effective task implementation at U.N. peacekeeping missions.
