International media have widely covered Vietnam’s celebration of 40th anniversary of southern liberation and national reunification. 

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Major newspapers in Laos have over the past few days highlighted the historic importance of Vietnam’s Victory on April 30th, 1975 and its socio-economic achievements in the last 40 years.

The newspapers emphasized that Vietnam’s victory in 1975 is also a victory of solidarity between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
China’s Xinhua News Agency quoted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s speech at the grand ceremony marking the occasion in Ho Chi Minh City as saying that the Victory on April 30, 1975 marked a new chapter in Vietnam’s history of national construction and defense. 

With that victory, Vietnam accomplished a historic mission of liberating the south and reunifying the country, bringing Vietnam into a new era, the era of independence and reunification, and building the socialist Vietnam into a strong nation with wealthy people and a democratic, just and civilized society.

Japan's Kyodo News Agency of Japan printed Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s speech and highlighted his call for the younger Vietnamese generation to promote their predecessors’ glorious revolutionary tradition in national development.

The AP news agency of the US said the victory on April 30th was extraordinary. A US marine soldier who attended the celebration in Ho Chi Minh City was quoted by the news agency as saying that he felt ashamed of what US soldiers did in Vietnam. The US marine soldier said that ties between Vietnam and the US are developing rapidly.

The AFP ran an article about serious consequences of the anti-US war emphasizing pains suffered by Agent/Orange victims. It quoted US Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius’s speech at a celebration in the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City as saying that the US remembered and respected the past but look toward the future and build the future on the basis of the past.

The US Ambassador highlighted the development of the US-Vietnam ties. In an interview with the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) in Algeria, Doctor Abdelmadjid Chikhi, General Director of the Algerian National Archives said Algeria always admired President Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap and congratulated Vietnam on the occasion.

VOV