Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Prime Minister of Vietnam Phạm Minh Chính, on the sidelines of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference, in Nice.
At the beginning of the meeting, the two Prime Ministers had the following dialogue:
Phạm Minh Chính: Thank you very much for your time to receive us. And again, I’d like to extend my invitation for you to visit Vietnam. And on this occasion, I would like to extend the heartfelt greetings from the General Secretary Tô Lâm, President Luong Cuong, President of the National Assembly Trần Thanh Mẫn, and my leaders, to the leaders of Greece.
I hope to receive you in your visit to Vietnam to strengthen our trust between our two countries. And discuss issues of mutual concern and interest. I’d like to hear from you, Mr. Prime Minister.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Thank you. Thank you so much, Prime Minister. It’s a great pleasure to see you on the occasion of this very important conference.
I would like to thank you for your invitation to visit Vietnam. I don’t think I will have to expend a lot of effort to convince my colleagues that this is a visit that needs to take place. But the timing is also interesting because we’re celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations. I would like to visit Vietnam before the end of the year, because I see lots of opportunities to further strengthen our bilateral relationship.
We have areas of common interest and of shared interests, our commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. Greece is a maritime nation. We control 25% of the global maritime fleets, so we have a great interest in ensuring the freedom of navigation and the safety of navigation.
This is a topic I also had an opportunity to raise at the level of the Security Council, where Greece is a non-permanent member for the years 2025 and 2026.
