According to VNA, the President sent his warm regards and best wishes to family members, including Senator Isabel Allende, daughter of the late President Salvador Allende, who also has special feelings for the country and people of Vietnam.
Pleased to welcome President Luong Cuong and the Vietnamese delegation, Ms. Isabel Allende said that the visit of the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation to Chile this time contributed to consolidating and further strengthening the traditional friendship between the two countries.
Ms. Isabel Allende also shared with the President the memories of her father, the late President Salvador Allende, during his visit to Vietnam in 1969, including the historic meeting with President Ho Chi Minh, and his special impressions and feelings about the indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese people.
The then President of the Senate, Salvador Allende, also gave many impressive speeches in the Chilean Senate about the heroic Vietnamese people's struggle for national independence, and when elected president, Mr. Allende immediately decided to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Mrs. Isabel Allende said that she had the opportunity to visit Vietnam in 2008 with her daughter when the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late President Salvador Allende took place in Hanoi. She was extremely impressed and admired the socio-economic achievements, as well as the comprehensive development in recent years of Vietnam, which she and her family always had a lot of affection for.
Visiting Chile for the first time, President Luong Cuong expressed his emotion and impression of the affection that the Chilean people have for President Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese people; affirming that although the two countries are half a world apart, they are always close and support each other in all circumstances.
The President emphasized that for the Vietnamese people, the late President Salvador Allende was known as a symbol of the international movement supporting Vietnam in the resistance war against the US, and was the last friend, comrade and foreign politician to meet President Ho Chi Minh before his death.
That special visit by the late President Allende brought the Vietnamese people solidarity, a great source of spiritual encouragement in the struggle for national liberation and became a symbol of friendship between the Vietnamese and Chilean peoples. At the same time, the late President was also the leader who played a decisive role in establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries, thereby making Chile the first country in South America and the second in Latin America and the Caribbean to have relations with Vietnam.
The President affirmed that on the basis of the close relationship laid by President Ho Chi Minh and the late President Salvador Allende, the relationship between the two countries has been nurtured through generations and is increasingly deepening and becoming more substantial; at the same time, through this visit, the two sides will identify key areas of strategic breakthrough cooperation to further connect the two economies, making practical contributions to the development of Vietnam and Chile.
The President hopes that Ms. Isabel Allende, as a family member of the late President and in her position in the Senate and the Chilean Socialist Party, will continue to contribute to strengthening the special friendship between the people of the two countries as well as contributing to the comprehensive development of Vietnam - Chile relations.
