Pyongyang, December 26 (KCNA) -- Choummaly Sayasone, general secretary of the C.C., Lao People's Revolutionary Party, president of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and chairman of the Central Committee of Defence and Security of Laos, on Monday paid a condolatory visit to the DPRK embassy in Vientiane on the demise of leader Kim Jong Il.

Accompanying him were Vice Prime Minister and concurrently Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, member of the Political Bureau of the C.C., LPRP and chairman of the Party Committee for External Affairs, the chairman of the Organization Committee of the LPRP who is secretary of its Central Committee, Cheuang Sombounkhan, secretary of the C.C., LPRP and chairman of its Propaganda and Education Ideological Committee, Phongsavath Boupha, minister and secretary general of the Presidency, and other officials concerned.

The president and his party laid a wreath before the portrait of Kim Jong Il and expressed deep condolences.

He wrote in the mourners' book:

The passing away of Comrade Kim Jong Il is not only a great loss to the party, government and people of the fraternal DPRK, who lost their great leader, but also sorrow to the Lao party, government and people, who lost their close friend with the common ideal.