During their two-and-a-half-day visit to Hamburg and Kiel, the delegation’s first stop was at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Among the delegation members, we have Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Lan Anh, who is a candidate from Hanoi for the position of Judge of ITLOS for the 2026-2035 term. She currently serves as the Director-General of the East Sea Institute at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. Afterward, the delegation held extensive meetings with various institutions including the University of the Federal Armed Forces, the University of Hamburg Law Faculty, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, German Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, Center of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters, Center for Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security - Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University. Notably, they became the first Vietnamese delegation to visit the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein, where they were received by the President of Parliament, Ms. Kristina Herbst, and the Chairman of the CDU Parliamentary Group, Tobias Koch. Additionally, they explored the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, a prestigious research institute specializing in climate dynamics, marine ecology, biogeochemistry, and ocean floor dynamics.
In the latter part of the dialogue program, the delegation visited Berlin, the capital of Germany. They received a warm welcome from the executive leadership of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Numerous meetings and expert discussions occurred with MP Gunther Krichbaum, MP Nicolas Zippelius, KAS policy advisors and representatives from the Federal Foreign Office, Federal Ministry of Justice, Federal Ministry of Defence, and German Institute for International and Security Affairs. During these events, discussions centered around economic security, particularly open maritime trade routes, as well as food and environmental security in the Mekong subregion. The dialogue program concluded successfully with a reception hosted by Vietnam’s Ambassador to Berlin.
