Geneva (VNA) - Viet Nam is ready to negotiate and cooperate with other countries on human rights matters of mutual concern, said Dao Viet Trung, Chief Delegate of the Vietnamese Mission and Foreign Minister Assistant, at the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, on Mar. 16.

Trung stressed that wars, conflicts, terrorism, poverty, epidemics, natural calamities, drug abuse, and trans-national crimes are continually threatening the rights to existence and development of millions of people in the world. Viet Nam knows that the highest right of the human being is to live freely in a peaceful and independent country. With its own experiences, Viet Nam believes that it is necessary resolve all human rights issues, Trung said.

The Vietnamese Chief Delegate said: "For Viet Nam, ensuring human rights is both a goal and a driving force of the national construction cause. All the guidelines and policies of Viet Nam aim at the goal of a rich people, a strong country, a fair, democratic and civilised society. Vietnamese laws ensure and respect all human rights in accordance with international principles and standards on human rights. Viet Nam's political, economic, cultural and social achievements in 2004 proved that the Vietnamese State is striving to ensure that all the people's human rights are protected.

The Vietnamese representative said that the Human Rights Commission work must be carried out in a balanced fashion, avoiding any politicalisation, and that recently, the commission had focused too much on civil and political rights while failing to pay due attention to economic, cultural, social and development rights. The commission has been abused by a number of countries and non-governmental organisations who have turned it into a forum for them to criticise and put pressure on developing countries, he said. The commission should be reformed, particularly the way in which it addresses human rights matters. The Human Rights Commission must become a forum for all countries, big or small, to exchange their viewpoints and negotiate to find measures to promote and protect human rights.

Trung said Viet Nam supports efforts to promote international cooperation, both multilateral and bilateral co-operation, on human rights along the principles of equal negotiations, constructiveness, mutual respect and understanding, for a common goal of promoting and protecting human rights. No countries have the right to use human rights as a tool to cause confrontation, political pressure, or as a condition for economic and trade relations, he stressed./.