HÀ NỘI — Officials, experts, journalists, and technicians from the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) who worked through different periods in Cambodia met on January 7, recalling their memorable times of hectic reporting from the neighbouring country.

Addressing the get-together at the VNA’s headquarters in Hà Nội, VNA General Director Nguyễn Đức Lợi said more than 40 years ago, Pol Pot-Ieng Sary’s government conducted violent attacks on the southwestern border of Việt Nam, as part of their hateful policies against Việt Nam.

In the face of bloody massacres and dangerous invasions, Vietnamese voluntary soldiers sided with their Cambodian allies to topple the Khmer Rouge regime.

In such a context, towards the end of 1978, a group of nearly 30 officials, journalists, telegraphers, and drivers of the VNA headed to Cambodia to report the joint struggle of volunteer Vietnamese soldiers and Cambodian army and people against Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.

Vietnam News Agency correspondents to Cambodia talked at the meeting held yesterday in Hà Nội. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

Between 1978 and 1988, the VNA officials and experts wholeheartedly assisted the building of the Cambodian News Agency – SPK (now AKP), he said, adding that hundreds of VNA leaders, reporters, editors, officials, technicians, and drivers were sent to AKP to help the agency with professional skills, apparatus organisation and technical equipment.

They overcame hardships to contribute to writing “golden pages” in history of the VNA, Lợi noted.

Since 1989, VNA continues to maintain a close cooperation with and provide support for the AKP.

VNA’s former General Director Trần Mai Hưởng recalled the VNA’s support for the preparation of the birth of the SPK on December 3, 1978, which carried news and photos on the establishment of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation a day earlier.

At the same time, the VNA dispatched reporters and technicians to battlefields in Cambodia to cover the battles, he said, noting that the agency continued to aid its Cambodian counterpart in reporting, technical infrastructure and personnel training after January 7, 1979.

“In the history of the Vietnam News Agency, there’s a chapter devoted to international duties, including those carried out in Laos and Cambodia. We are glad and proud to contribute to that glorious historic chapter,” said former VNA General Director Nguyễn Quốc Uy, who was VNA correspondent in Cambodia in the 1980s. — VNS