CAM RANH (Vietnam), June 4. /TASS/. Russia’s Pacific Fleet warships will hold joint drills with Vietnam’s navy, Commander of the naval group that arrived at the Vietnamese port of Cam Ranh, Captain 1st Rank Oleg Korolyov told TASS on Monday.
"During our stay in Cam Ranh, we are planning to hold drills under the Code of West Pacific Partnership. This is an agreement that gives the sailors of all the countries the possibilities to better understand each other at sea, stipulates the norms of behavior in disputable situations and unplanned encounters at sea. Such drills will be held on June 6 jointly with a guard ship of the 4th naval region of the Vietnamese Navy," the commander of the Russian group of warships said.
Russia’s naval group that arrived at Vietnam’s Cam Ranh on Sunday comprises the large anti-submarine warfare ships Admiral Tributs and Admiral Vinogradov and the medium sea tanker Pechenga.
The Pacific Fleet warships’ call at the port of Cam Ranh is "a landmark event for the Russian Navy," the commander said.
From 1979 to May 2002, the Cam Ranh peninsula housed the Pacific Fleet’s logistics center - the Russian Navy’s largest base abroad, he noted.
"For almost four decades now, Cam Ranh is the venue, which unites the Russian and Vietnamese navies. The Cam Ranh Bay is of global strategic importance in Southeast Asia and is a place for all types of providing support for and servicing vessels of the Pacific Fleet and other Russian fleets," Korolyov noted.
Russia and Vietnam are strategic allies and the peoples of both countries are bound by the ties of friendship and brotherhood in arms tested over many decades by fire and glory, he said.
Now that Russian warships again regular call at Cam Ranh after leaving it in 2002, the Vietnamese side is always glad to receive them here, he added.
"Such visits give a possibility to expand interaction between the navies of Russia and Vietnam. On our part, we proposed today and will propose again that Vietnamese warships visit the main base of the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok," the mission’s commander said.
As was reported earlier, a group of the Russian Pacific Fleet warships arrived at Cam Ranh on June 3 and would stay at the Vietnamese port through June 7.