Vietnam wants to cooperate with Russia in peaceful exploration of outer space - Vietnam’s president

HANOI, July 21. /TASS/. Vietnam wants to develop cooperation with Russia in the sphere of peaceful space exploration, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang said on Tuesday receiving Russian and Vietnamese cosmonauts, Viktor Gorbatko and Pham Tuan, members of a joint Soviet-Vietnamese space mission of 1980. The president stressed the importance of that space mission for his country. "Thanks to that space flight, a Vietnamese citizen had a chance to be in outer space, which was a milestone event in the life of the peoples of the two countries. It opened a new stage in the development of traditional friendship and comprehensive partnership between Vietnam and the former Soviet Union, and now Russia," Truong Tan Sang said. The Vietnamese leaders stressed that the first joint space mission had paved the way for space research in his country. "Today, Vietnamese researchers need assistance from their Russian partners in the space research and exploration for peaceful purposes," he said. He also called for further development of traditionally close friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries. "For more than 50 years, Vietnam and Russia have been maintaining traditional relations of friendship. Each Vietnamese citizen keeps in his or her heart profound feelings towards Russia. Our people is thankful for the selfless assistance of the Soviet people in the hard years of Vietnam’s struggle for independence and post-war revival of the country," the Vietnamese president underscored. Read more