Vietnam to open embassy in Israel

03 April 2008 - 13H30

Vietnam will open an embassy in Israel in the coming months after 15 years of diplomatic ties between the two states, the Israeli foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister Vu Dung, on an official visit to Israel, announced that Hanoi intended to open an embassy "within several months," the ministry said in a statement.

The embassy will be in Tel Aviv and not in Jerusalem, which the international community does not recognise as Israel's capital, the head of the ministry's Southeast Asia desk Giora Bachar told AFP.

The move was expected to tighten ties between the two countries, mainly in trade and tourism, as their annual bilateral trade volume stood last year at 160 million dollars, Bachar added.

Although the two countries established ties in 1993 and Israel has an embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam has so far been represented in the Jewish state by its embassy in Egypt.