By Yan Liang and Chen Jinyang

KATMANDU, Sept. 10 (ChinaMil) -- The closing ceremony of the China-Nepal "Mt. Everest Friendship 2019" joint exercise was held at the barracks of Nepal’s special forces in Katmandu on Monday morning, local time. Participants of the two sides, supervising and observation groups, as well as China’s Defense Attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu attended the ceremony.

After the commander of the Nepalese Special Operations Battalion summarized the joint exercise at the ceremony, head of the Chinese observation group Li Shizhong and the chief Nepalese representative for the joint exercise presented certificates to the participants from both Special Forces, who then exchanged souvenirs and delivered speeches.

Li Shizhong pointed out that the joint exercise featuring anti-terrorism rescue operations demonstrated the two countries’ firm determination to jointly respond to terrorism, and also the two militaries’ strong wills to jointly safeguard regional peace and stability, so as to create a harmonious development environment. The chief Nepalese representative said that the joint exercise has achieved the goal of training the squad-level urban anti-terrorism operations, and improving the anti-terrorism interoperability and basic rescue capabilities of the two armed forces.

During the exercise which kicked off on August 28, officers and soldiers from both Special Forces were mixed into two combat squads to operate in 16 subjects such as combat shooting, combat stamina, room breaching and bus breaching. On the morning of September 8, the two sides conducted comprehensive drills involving air landing, bus breaching, identification and shooting, covering the evacuation of wounded, fast-roping, room breaching and combat shooting.

Participants also held ball activities, bonfire party, tug of war and other cultural and sports activities which have enhanced mutual understanding and friendship.

It is reported that this is the third time for the two militaries to carry out the joint exercise series "Mt. Everest Friendship”and the second time to conduct it in Nepal. The scale of the joint training was expanded compared with that of last year and theoretical lectures on disaster relief in both countries were added to the training for the first time.