Miroslav Stepan, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, said at the meeting that Kim Jong Il has successfully carried forward the revolutionary cause of President Kim Il Sung and turned the DPRK into a powerful socialist state while working at the C.C., the WPK.

Under his leadership the DPRK has firmly established the political and ideological unity and cohesion between the party and the people and increased the nation's defence capability in every way while steadfastly preserving the principles of independence in politics, self-support in economy and self-reliance in national defence, the speaker stressed.

The case of warship "Cheonan", orchestrated by the U.S. and the south Korean authorities as part of their anti-DPRK smear campaign, rendered the situation on the Korean Peninsula so dangerous that a war may break out there once again, he said, and went on:

They have asserted that the DPRK was involved in the case. As a matter of course they should have investigated it with the representative of the DPRK involved, had their claim been true.

But they not only prevented the DPRK's representative from joining the "investigation team" but also refused the latter's proposal that it would send its inspection group for the probe into the warship sinking.

We urge the U.S. and the south Korean authorities to accept the DPRK's proposal.

The Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party expresses support and solidarity with the friendly Korean people in their struggle to defend peace on the Korean Peninsula.