By Heekyong Yang
SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised the legacy of the ruling party and called for renewed loyalty to socialism in a speech ahead of Friday’s 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea, state media KCNA reported.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, a delegation from Russia’s ruling party led by chairman Dmitry Medvedev as well as Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam, are among foreign dignitaries due to attend celebrations in the isolated state this week.
Vietnam’s government confirmed Lam and his delegation had departed for Pyongyang on Thursday for the first visit by a Vietnamese Communist Party leader to North Korea in nearly 20 years. Cooperation agreements were expected to be signed during the visit, according to people familiar with the planning.
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, KCNA said.
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 side by side with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary since 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 in HanoiEditing by Ed Davies)
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