Ambassador Le Luong Minh, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to theUnited Nations made the statement at the plenary meeting of the GeneralAssembly to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first human flight toouter space held in New York on April 7.
Speaking at the session, Ambassador Minh hailed the first human flightto outer space by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, saying that it was ahuge milestone in the history of mankind, a dream come true for manygenerations of leaders, scientists, writers and ordinary people.
The flight also opened up a new age of activities in spaceexploration, contributing immensely to man’s ability to improve thequality of life on earth and increasing international cooperation inspace science to help solve many mysteries of the universe and bringdown the frontiers of space in the interest of all, he added.
Minh said that the Vietnamese government set up a commission on spaceresearch in early 1979 to prepare for the Soviet-Vietnam joint humanspace flight. As a result, the first Vietnamese cosmonaut, hero-pilotPham Tuan, successfully undertook his joint mission with Russiancosmonaut Gorbatko in 1980.
In 2006 theGovernment of Vietnam adopted the “Strategy on Research and Applicationof Space Technology by 2020”, which states that all activities ofresearch and use of outer space must aim at peaceful purposes,contribute to the prevention of a possible arms race in outer space, andstrengthen international cooperation in formulating a legal frameworkfor the exploration and use of outer space toward peaceful ends, he said
The ambassador stressed that in order to ensure theexploration of outer space to serve the benefit of all mankind and forinternational cooperation in this field to be fruitful, theinternational community must also strengthen efforts to prevent an armsrace in outer space.
He stated Vietnam alsoadvocates the examination of further measures towards agreements toprevent an arms race in outer space in accordance with the spirit ofGeneral Assembly resolutions 65/68 and 65/97 adopted at its 65th Sessionand its previous resolutions./.