HANOI, October 17. /TASS/. Strengthening and further developing comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Vietnam has been an important factor for maintaining security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Russian Ambassador to Vietnam, Konstantin Vnukov, said on Tuesday.

"The overall situation in the Asia-Pacific region can be described as relatively favorable but having its own hotbeds of tension," the ambassador said delivering a lecture entitled "Russia’s Strategy in Asia: The Role and Place of Vietnam" in the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam." "This is, of course, the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, which has aggravated again recently, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and such unconventional challenges and security threats as international terrorism, piracy and drug trafficking."

He stressed that Russia as a Eurasian power is "vitally interested in ensuring peace, security and stable development of the Asia-Pacific region, creating here reliable international legal mechanisms and principles of security and cooperation," taking into account the concerns and interests of all countries in the region. "In this regard, Russia attaches key importance to boosting ties with Vietnam as part of various dialogue formats, such as the Asia-Europe cooperation forum, the East Asia summits, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, the ASEAN Regional Security Forum and, of course, the APEC forum chaired by Vietnam this year," Vnukov noted.

Russian-Vietnamese cooperation

Referring to bilateral cooperation, the ambassador recalled that cooperation between Russia and Vietnam is based on extensive experience accumulated over six and a half decades of diplomatic relations and the traditional friendship. "We supported Vietnam during the difficult years when the Vietnamese people fought for its independence. We worked together to restore Vietnam’s national economy, to create many branches of its economy, science, education and health care," the diplomat stated.

According to the ambassador, military and military-technical cooperation between the two countries, along with trade and economic cooperation, reflects a high degree of confidence. The volume of bilateral trade has shown steady growth over the past few years. In 2016, the trade turnover amounted to $3.8 bln, while in the first six months of this year it reached $2.4 bln, which is a 18-percent increase compared to the same period last year.