The Vietnamese Government leader made the call during his reception of newly-appointed ambassador Park Suk-Hwan of the Republic of Korea (RoK) in Hanoi on June 15, where bilateral relations were the top topic.

The Vietnamese Prime Minister highlighted President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Vietnam in October last year as a milestone to bring bilateral ties to a new height in line with the comprehensive partnership between the two countries.

He pointed out the need for the two countries to speed up projects and programmes of mutual benefits, thus contributing to peace, cooperation and development in the world.

“ Vietnam and the RoK should promote political and diplomatic relations as well as increase efficiency of coordination at the international and multilateral forums,” Dung said.

He said he expected that the new ambassador would do his best to promote his country’s ODA for Vietnam and contribute to developing friendship and solidarity between the two countries.

Vietnamese authorities will closely cooperate with the new ambassador to speed up joint projects in the spirit of long-term partnership, the PM said.

In regards to the Korean Peninsular situation, Dung said the Vietnamese Government expected relevant parties would keep restraint to solve outstanding problems through dialogues so as to maintain peace and stability as well as speed up negotiations for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula .

Dung reiterated this stand regarding the Cheonan ship incident after sharing deep sympathy over the losses of life and property with the RoK.

“It’s Vietnam ’s unswerving stance to oppose the use of force or threatening to use force in international relations,” he emphasised.

Vietnam ’s viewpoints on this issue will be based on investigation results, Dung said, affirming that the Government would express strong condemnation if the investigation, with objective and scientific evidence, would reveal that the ship was attacked.

Vietnam would consider every issue carefully and objectively so as to make fair and responsible decisions in the capacity of the President of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dung said.

For his part, Park Suk-Hwan pledged to do his best to speed up RoK-invested projects in Vietnam , especially those projects suffering slow disbursement of investment.

He expressed hope for soon expansion of bilateral cooperation in all fields.

By late 2010, the RoK would host the G20 conference and expected that Vietnam as ASEAN chair would actively help the RoK government in making the event successful, the Korean diplomat concluded.

RoK is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam with investment surpassing 22 billion USD in over 2,400 projects. Almost 100,000 Koreans are working and studying in Vietnam./.