Today, our people and the progressive peoples of the world are significantly celebrating with the warm hearts of boundless admiration the 45th anniversary of the official goodwill visit paid by great Comrade Kim Il Sung , an eternal sun of all peoples, to Algeria and Mauritania located in the northwestern extremity of the faraway African continent.

Nearly half a century ago, great Comrade Kim Il Sung paid an official state visit to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania with a noble international mission to dynamically inspire and encourage the struggle of the peoples of developing countries for attaining sovereignty and independence and creating a new life and to develop the Non-Aligned Movement(NAM).

During the historic visit from May 26 to June 2, Juche 64(1975), Comrade Kim Il Sung laid an invaluable tradition of sincere friendship and cooperation between the peoples of the DPRK and Algeria and Mauritania who stand together on the same road for independence against imperialism and non-alignment.

As early as in the late 1950s, Comrade Kim Il Sung extended active support and encouragement – both morally and materially – to the Algerian people who had been waging the struggle for national liberation. When the provisional revolutionary government of Algeria was established on September 25, 1958, he was the first to take the measure of recognizing it. He awarded Houari Boumedienne, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Algeria and Prime Minister of the Cabinet of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, who had visited our country in March 1974, with a title of DPRK Hero, the first of its kind ever awarded to the head of a foreign state.

Moved by all these, Chairman Houari Boumedienne expressed his excited feelings at a welcome banquet in the People’s Palace of Algiers when he received the Great Leader in Algeria, saying that Algerian people greet the great President as a great fighter for the cause of the oppressed people and an outstanding leader of the Korean People.

During the visit by the Great Leader to Algeria, the then Algiers University conferred on him a title of honorary doctor, which is awarded to the personages who made an outstanding contribution to science and humanity, and the Chairman of the Algiers City People’s Assembly conferred the honorary citizenship of Algiers City and the honorary citizen badge on the Great Leader. And the Algerian Newspaper “El Moudjahid” highly praised President Kim Il Sung , who was visiting liberated Algeria for the first time, as a reliable comrade-in-arms for the cause of Algeria and for all the righteous causes of the fighting peoples.

The reverence and admiration for great Comrade Kim Il Sung were also vividly manifested in Mauritania, where hot wind of the Sahara was sweeping across.

Upon hearing the delightful news that Comrade Kim Il Sung would visit his country, President Moktar Ould Daddah who had never expected the Great Leader’s visit to faraway Mauritania, welcomed him with all sincerity, saying that he could hardly repress his emotion of having the privilege to receive President Kim Il Sung – the teacher of world revolutionary peoples – in the land of Mauritania.

The President awarded the National Order of Merit, the highest order of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, to the Great Leader and expressed his excited feelings at a welcome banquet, saying that the struggle of the Korean people under the leadership of the Great Leader serves to be an encouraging beam for the struggles of Mauritanian people and the peoples in the Asian and African countries and he himself and the entire Mauritanian people deem it their utmost happiness and greatest honor to welcome H.E. President Kim Il Sung .

At the one-on-one talks and the plenary talks held with the Heads of Algeria and Mauritania and in the speeches made in the banquets and the mass rallies during those unforgettable days, Comrade Kim Il Sung said that the peoples of the developing countries have now proudly emerged as masters of the world and have become a great driving force that advances the history of humankind and if the developing countries not only forge a politically strong unity but also strengthen economic and technical cooperation on the principle of complementing one another, they can achieve their national economic self-support and common prosperity in a short span of time without the assistance from big powers.

The Head of State of Algeria, the then Chair of the NAM, and the President of Mauritania, unanimously told great Comrade Kim Il Sung , who clearly illuminates the way forward for the people of the developing countries – which cover the most of the world population and territory and the abundant natural resources – that they fully support the admission by the DPRK to the NAM and would render all possible efforts to this end, as H.E. President Kim Il Sung is the only leader who could play a great role within the NAM.

Indeed, the visit of great Comrade Kim Il Sung to Algeria and Mauritania was the historic one through which he set forth the building of a new independent world as a common fighting task of humankind and led the international political trend of the 20th century into the road of independence.

The immortal history of leadership of great Comrade Kim Il Sung , who had made enormous contribution to accomplishing the cause of global independence, was invariably carried forward by great Comrade Kim Jong Il , and it is now crowned with glory by Comrade Kim Jong Un , Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK.

Under the outstanding and seasoned leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Un , the Korean people will, as ever, work actively hand in hand with the peoples of Algeria, Mauritania and other developing and NAM countries for the building of an independent, peaceful and prosperous new world.

Korea-Arab Association