Defence cooperation is a key pillar of the Vietnam – New Zealand Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and the two sides have expanded their ties to a new field which is to provide support for UN peacekeeping forces.

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on November 23 signed a decision to send two army officers to the European Union Training Mission in Central Africa.

With standout contributions to United Nations’ peacekeeping missions over the past seven years, the Vietnam Centre for Peacekeeping, now the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, has helped improve the profile and role of Vietnam’s military and Vietnam as a whole in the international arena.

The State Committee on Overseas Vietnamese Affairs under the Foreign Ministry held a ceremony on May 15 to present over 232 million VND to the Defence Ministry’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

The Department of Peacekeeping Operations under the Ministry of National Defence is hosting the United Nations (UN) Senior National Planners Course, which opened in Hanoi on April 1.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Defence’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the French Defence Attache Office in Vietnam launched an exchange of medical expertise in Hanoi on November 12 for staff of level 1 field hospital under the engineer corps of the Vietnam United Nations Peacekeeping Mission.