Vietnamese Deputy Defense Minister Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh and his Canadian counterpart Michael Martin have discussed a number of fields of defense cooperation between the two countries. The discussion took place at a meeting between the two officials as part of Vinh’s visit to Canada from October 30 to November 1, during which the two sides explored areas of defense cooperation that are of their strengths like the exchange of delegations, the United Nations peacekeeping missions and humanitarian issues. Both sides shared the view that maritime security and safety, especially sovereignty disputes on waters in the Asia-Pacific pose a potential threat to world peace and stability. They said that the sovereignty disputes must be resolved by peaceful means in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and other ASEAN declarations on the East Sea. The Canadian Deputy Minister highly valued the ASEAN’s role in promoting multilateral security cooperation mechanisms in the region, especially those on defense between ASEAN and its partners like the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+). During his visit to Canada, Vinh also paid a courtesy call to Chief of the Canadian Defense Staff, Gen. Tomas Lawson and visited the Peace Support Training Centre and several army units. Vinh conveyed Defense Minister General Phung Quang Thanh’s invitation to Canadian Minister of National Defense Robert Nicholson to visit Vietnam in the coming time. Vietnam and Canada established diplomatic relations in 1973, with the latter opening an embassy in Hanoi in 1994 and a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City three years later.