“Since disarmament is the global issue that cannot be solved unilaterally or bilaterally, only global action can help to resolve it radically”, said the Deputy Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN, Pham Quang Vinh, at the General Debate of the First Committee of the 65^th Session of the UN General Assembly, which convened in New York from October 4-6.

Vinh noted that 2010 has seen positive signs in the field of disarmament, citing the signing of the Treaty on measures for the further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (NEW START) in April between the US and Russia, and the successful conclusion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in May.

However, the Vietnamese representative also pointed out a slow progress in the field, referring to the continued deadlock of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and the stalemate in the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC).

“Thirty years after the Cold War, the international community continues to be threatened by the existence of more than twenty thousand nuclear warheads which are deploying and stockpiling in many parts of the world, he said.

The representative affirmed Vietnam’s commitment to work harder with all member states to achieve the noble cause for sustainable peace and security of the world.

“Based on its consistent policy of striving for peace, opposing the arms race and preventing the proliferation of all kind of weapons of mass destruction, Vietnam persistently pursues its long standing principled position to support general and complete disarmament with top priority given to nuclear disarmament,” Vinh said.

In this spirit, the country has acceded to core international arms-control instruments such as the NPT, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and we have strictly complied with all their obligations.

Vinh also called upon all nuclear weapon states to ratify, as soon as possible, the Protocol annexed to the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty, so as to demonstrate their serious commitment to the goal of a nuclear-weapon free world.

The diplomat emphasised the need to convene an international conference to identify effective ways and means to completely eliminating nuclear weapons in a specific time framework, the need for a global, legally binding unconditional instrument on negative security assurances, and many other important issues to assure a world without nuclear weapons.

As a peace-loving nation, Vietnam will do its utmost and spare no efforts to strive for the goal of complete disarmament and lasting international peace and security, he concluded.