The Vietnamese expert-level dialogue delegation was led by Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh - Vice Chairwoman of Quang Ninh Provincial People's Committee.
Participating in the working trip were Vietnam's leading experts in the fields of culture, archaeology, landscape geology and those directly involved in building the dossier, along with representatives of relevant departments and branches.
Yen Tu relics and landscapes are a series of relics spread across the three provinces of Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, and Hai Duong. The dossier has been of interest to Vietnam and has been researched and developed since 2020. ICOMOS experts conducted a field assessment of the dossier from August 5 to August 15, 2024. After the field assessment by ICOMOS experts, ICOMOS sent an invitation to Vietnam to participate in a dialogue on the dossier. Within the framework of the working trip, a working session and dialogue took place in Paris, France on the afternoon of November 25.
The dialogue on the ICOMOS side was chaired by the ICOMOS President and 30 independent ICOMOS experts participating in the dialogue directly and online. In addition to the Vietnamese delegation directly participating in Paris, there was also a group participating in the online dialogue in Vietnam on the dossier chaired by Mr. Hoang Dao Cuong - Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism with leaders of the Department of Culture and Sports, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the 3 provinces of Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, Hai Duong and related agencies.
ICOMOS highly appreciated Vietnam's supplementary report on the nomination dossier as recommended by ICOMOS, which provided all the necessary information on the nomination dossier that ICOMOS required.
During the discussion, ICOMOS proposed to clarify the outstanding global value, the characteristic value of Truc Lam Buddhist architecture; the difference of Buddhist architecture with other Buddhist architectures in the region; the strongest and weakest points of the Dossier; the authenticity, the relationship between the issue of cultural landscape and the content of criterion 5 is two or one; the issue of management and the role of the community.
ICOMOS assessed that the Vietnamese delegation had answered the questions on the spot well and protected the nominated heritage well. ICOMOS also said that if there were any issues requiring additional information on the heritage, they would send it soon so that Vietnam could continue to research and respond on time. In addition to the official dialogue, the Quang Ninh delegation also had meetings and dialogues with ambassadors of the permanent delegations of countries to UNESCO so that the ambassadors could clearly understand the Yen Tu heritage and the efforts of the three provinces of Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, and Hai Duong in building the dossier and in preserving and conserving the heritage.
