This is a significant year which will mark the 64th anniversary of the first meeting between President Kim Il Sung, great leader of the Korean people, and Comrade Ho Chi Minh, respected leader of the Vietnamese people.
From July 8 to 12, 1957, Comrade Ho Chi Minh, President of the then Democratic Republic of Vietnam (now Socialist Republic of Vietnam), paid an official visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
President Kim Il Sung personally received and saw Comrade Ho Chi Minh off at the airport. President Kim Il Sung together with Comrade Ho Chi Minh attended the 100,000 strong welcome rally that took place at Kim Il Sung Square, and also looked around several places including Pyongyang Textile Mill, Pyongyang Silk Mill, Agricultural Cooperative of Kochang-ri in Kangso County of South Phyongan Province, and Kangson Steel Plant.
In the speech delivered at the rally, President Kim Il Sung expressed full support to and solidarity with the Vietnamese people’s righteous cause of struggle, affirming that any desperate manoeuver by the imperialists would neither suppress the desire nor break the will of the Vietnamese people to achieve peaceful reunification of their motherland. At the talks with Comrade Ho Chi Minh, President Kim Il Sung expounded on the issues deemed requisite by the Vietnamese people for building a new society, including our country’s experience gained through economic construction and agricultural cooperativization.
Deeply moved, Comrade Ho Chi Minh highly praised President Kim Il Sung as an outstanding revolutionary fighter and a friend of the Vietnamese people, and repeatedly expressed his regret over his time-constrained visit to Korea.
President Kim Il Sung paid an official visit to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from November 28 to December 2, 1958, at the invitation of Comrade Ho Chi Minh. He visited Vietnam again from November 9 to 16, 1964, when the war was spilling over into North Vietnam following the “Bac Bo Bay Incident” and encouraged the Vietnamese people to fight to the end for victory in the war.
President Kim Il Sung treasured as ever the comradely obligation and feelings shared with Comrade Ho Chi Minh, respected leader of the Vietnamese people, and personally sent excellent sons of the Korean people along with the unreserved support and encouragement – both materially and morally – to the Vietnamese people who were waging resistance war for national salvation.
The friendly and cooperative DPRK-Vietnam relations which are associated with the noble spirit of the preceding leaders of the two countries were invariably inherited and enhanced with the turn of 21st century thanks to the historic Pyongyang Summit Meetings Chairman Kim Jong Il had respectively with Comrade Tran Duc Luong, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Comrade Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
The friendly and cooperative DPRK-Vietnam relations forged and tested in the joint struggle for accomplishing the cause of socialism have now been further elevated into the unique comradely and strategic relations, thanks to the historic official goodwill visit to Vietnam by Comrade Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and President of the State Affairs of the DPRK.
The friendly and cooperative DPRK-Vietnam relations which are associated with the noble spirit of the preceding leaders of the two countries will enter a higher stage of their development under the deep attention of the supreme leaders of the two Parties and the two countries.
Pak Sang Gil, Vice-Chairman of Korea-Asia Association
