History and Tradition of Friendship Enriched Through Centuries and Generations

Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), paid an official goodwill visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam two years ago, on March 1~2, 2019.

The official goodwill visit by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to Vietnam is brilliantly etched in golden letters in the history of development of the DPRK-Vietnam relations, as it marks an epoch-making event of great significance in invariably inheriting and developing the traditional ties of friendship and cooperation between the two Parties and the two countries forged in blood.

Looking at the scene where Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, made a warm hug with respected Comrade Kim Jong Un and expressed his firm will to add an eternal luster to the promising future of development of the friendly relations between the DPRK and Vietnam, and the cascading flowers of welcome stretching over the hundred-mile-long streets, our people have recalled with deep emotion the friendly DPRK-Vietnam relations being inherited and developed onto higher stages through centuries and generations.

Through Pyongyang Summit Meeting in July 1957 and two Hanoi Summit Meetings in November 1958 and November 1964 respectively, President Kim Il Sung deepened comradely friendship with Comrade Ho Chi Minh, the respected leader of Vietnamese people, and laid lasting foundations for the development of relations between the two countries.

The DPRK-Vietnam friendly relations were invariably inherited and improved and entered a new stage of development, thanks to the historic Pyongyang Summit Meetings that Chairman Kim Jong Il had with Comrade Tran Duc Luong, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in May 2002 and Comrade Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in October 2007.

The official goodwill visit by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to Vietnam served indeed as a historic watershed which further developed the DPRK-Vietnam friendly relations into the unique comradely and strategic one – the relations forged and tested in the common struggle for accomplishing the cause of socialism on the nourishing basis of the warm and true personal relations between the preceding leaders of the two countries.

It is the consistent and steadfast stand of the government of the DPRK to cherish and further develop, as ever, the DRPK-Vietnam friendly relations for generations, which have now entered a new leaping stage of development and prosperity under the deep attention of the supreme leaders of the two Parties and the two countries.

Our people sincerely hope that the friendly people of Vietnam will achieve greater successes in their efforts for implementing the decisions made at the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam and for building a powerful and prosperous Vietnam under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam headed by Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong.

The flower garden of friendship between the DPRK and Vietnam will continue to come into fuller blossom.

Pak Jong Hak

Chairman of Korea-Asia Association