NSA Ajit Doval arrives in Hanoi for talks with Vietnam's leadership
The visit follows President To Lam's state visit to India in May, when the two countries upgraded ties to an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval arrived in Hanoi on Sunday on an official visit to Vietnam, India's embassy there said in a post on X, as reported by the news agencies IANS, PTI and ANI. The embassy said Doval would "interact with the Vietnamese leadership in line with the India-Vietnam Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership". It did not say whom he would meet or how long he would stay.
The two countries raised their relationship to an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during Vietnamese President To Lam's state visit to India in May. At that summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and To Lam set a target of $25 billion in annual trade by 2030, PTI reported, and welcomed progress on a joint vision for defence partnership to 2030 covering defence dialogue, joint exercises, co-production of defence technology and maritime security, according to the Ministry of External Affairs as cited by ANI.
Vietnam is one of India's closest partners in Southeast Asia and, like the Philippines, is locked in maritime disputes with China in the South China Sea, which makes security cooperation with Hanoi a sensitive part of India's Act East policy. In September, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Vietnam's Deputy Defence Minister, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Truong Thang, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi, IANS reported.
No official readout of Doval's meetings had been issued by early Monday.
Sources
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