Senior Lieutenant General Lê Quang Đạo presented the decisions on the deployment of four officers of the Việt Nam People’s Army to UN peacekeeping operations. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of National Defence held a ceremony in Hà Nội on Thursday to hand over the President and the Minister of National Defence's decisions on the deployment of four officers of the Việt Nam People’s Army (VPA) to UN peacekeeping operations.

Senior Lieutenant General Lê Quang Đạo, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the VPA, and Deputy Head of the Ministry of National Defence’s Steering Committee for Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations, chaired the ceremony.

The officers include Senior Lieutenant Colonel Hoàng Trung Kiên and Major Đỗ Huyền Trang from the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations (VDPO), who will respectively serve as a military performance and accountability reporting expert and a military expert at the Office of the Special Coordinator on improving the United Nations response to sexual exploitation and abuse (OSCSEA) at UN Headquarters.

The other two are Senior Lieutenant Colonel Phạm Thị Nguyệt Minh from the Political Academy under the Ministry of National Defence, and Captain Võ Văn Thiện from the Army Officer Candidate School No. 2, who will serve as military observers with the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).

The deployment reflects the growing professional capacity of Việt Nam’s UN peacekeeping force, with the officers selected through rigorous procedures for their respective positions.

Major General Phạm Mạnh Thắng, director of the VDPO, said the department coordinated with relevant agencies and units to select, train and prepare the personnel in line with the requirements of their respective positions.

All the officers have appropriate professional training, expertise and experience, and have completed UN peacekeeping training programmes in accordance with the requirements of the VPA and the UN, he said.

Senior Lieutenant General Đạo asked the officers to regard their deployment as an important political task, as well as an honour and major responsibility. He stressed that they must maintain political steadfastness and observe the foreign policy of the Party, the State and the army, as well as UN regulations and the laws of the host country. — VNA/VNS