By Heekyong Yang
SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised the legacy of the country’s ruling party in a speech ahead of Friday’s 80th anniversary of its founding, as delegations from China, Russia and Vietnam arrived in Pyongyang to attend celebrations.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, a delegation from Russia led by former President Dmitry Medvedev as well as Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam, are among foreign dignitaries joining events to mark the anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea in the isolated state this week.
Li, who was met by an honour guard at Pyongyang’s airport, said that China and North Korea “as socialist neighbours connected by mountains and rivers had a profound traditional friendship,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Vietnam’s top leader Lam and his delegation attended a welcome ceremony at a Pyongyang sports centre, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported. It is the first visit by a Vietnamese Communist Party leader to North Korea in nearly 20 years and cooperation agreements are expected to be signed during the visit, according to people familiar with the planning.
Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, is visiting with a delegation that includes Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov and the governor of the Kursk region, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
Kim visited the Party Founding Museum in Pyongyang on Wednesday with senior party officials and delivered what state media called a “significant speech” honouring the party’s founders and revolutionary forerunners, North Korean state media KCNA reported.
The North Korean leader paid tribute to his late grandfather and state founder Kim Il Sung and anti-Japanese fighters for laying a “solid cornerstone” for the party’s enduring strength and success, the report said.
Reflecting on eight decades of party history, Kim said it was a time for the current generation to renew its understanding of its “revolutionary obligations and duties” to complete the socialist cause begun by its predecessors.
Kim also pledged to preserve the party’s ideological purity and vitality “without decrepitude and discolouration,” calling the Party Founding Museum a “sacred sanctuary” representing the party’s tradition.
Last month, the North Korean leader stood alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat at the end of World War Two, a move aimed at bolstering Kim’s diplomatic standing.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has not yet confirmed whether a military parade will take place to mark this week’s holiday.
South Korean officials said there were signs that Pyongyang will stage a military parade to commemorate the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Yonhap news agency reported last week.
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi and Ryan Woo in BeijingEditing by Ed Davies)
