October 28 is a significant day when great President Kim Il Sung had the first meeting with Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane, eminent leader of the Lao people.

On October 28, 1965 – 55 years ago – great President Kim Il Sung had the first meeting with Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane who visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), thus having laid valuable cornerstone of bilateral relations of friendship.

Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane, founder of Lao People’s Party (at that time) is esteemed by the Lao people as “eminent leader of Lao people” and “respected leader” for having led to victory the anti-U.S. struggle and the socialist construction of the Lao people.

Great President Kim Il Sung paid deep attention to Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane’s first visit to the DPRK which started on October 28, 1965 (from October 28 to November 3, 1965), met him several times during his stay and gave valuable instruction with regard to the anti-U.S. struggle of Laos.

The first visit by Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane to the DPRK was followed thereafter by several visits in 1970, 1977, and in April 1992, every time having met with President Kim Il Sung , and he conferred the highest orders of Laos on President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il .

This is why the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic prove to be traditional one personally provided and nurtured by President Kim Il Sung , great leader of the Korean people, and Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane, eminent leader of the Lao people.

In the past century, the Korean people, upholding the noble intention of President Kim Il Sung , supported and encouraged the Lao people both materially and morally in their anti-U.S. struggle for national salvation and their efforts for building a new society, and the Lao people, under the leadership of Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane, assisted with all sincerity the struggle of the Korean people for socialist construction and national reunification.

The bonds of friendship and the relations of multifaceted cooperation between the two countries forged by the preceding leaders have continuously strengthened and developed at the turn of the new century as well in the common struggles for socialism.

Chairman Kim Jong Il together with the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un met with Comrade Choummaly Sayasone, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and President of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic when he visted the DPRK in September 2011. At the meeting, Chairman Kim Jong Il expressed the will of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the DPRK to actively develop the relations of friendship and cooperation, pursuant to the noble intentions of the preceding leaders of the two countries and in conformity with the aspirations of the peoples of the two countries.

At that meaningful meeting, Comrade Choummaly Sayasone expressed his sincere thanks to the Korean Party, government and the fraternal Korean people not only for having provided the material and moral assistance to the Lao people in their struggle in the past for national salvation and for building a new society, but also for continuing to render valuable assistance. And he affirmed the invariable will of the Lao Party, state and people to continue to maintain and further strengthen and develop the traditional relations of friendship and cooperation between Laos and the DPRK.

This is how the relations of friendship and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries, which enjoy a long history and excellent tradition, have been invariably inherited and developed through generations and centuries. The bilateral relations are now further consolidating and developing onto a new stage under the deep attention by the supreme leaders of the two countries.

Korea-Asia Association