Pyongyang, December 28 (KCNA) -- Personages of various countries paid condolatory visits to the DPRK missions between Dec. 20 and 23 on the demise of leader Kim Jong Il.

They included the Mongolian minister of Defence; the financial secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the People's Party, the speaker of the Sind State Assembly, the secretary to the Foreign Ministry and the director general of its General Administration of East Asia and Pacific Affairs and the chairman of the Association for Self-Reliance Studies in Pakistan; the director general of the General Administration of East Asia Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, the chairman of the Federation of Chinese and the general manger of the Yang Tzi Cruise and Tour SDN.BHD. of Malaysia; a senior minister, the secretary of State of the Ministry of Information, deputy general secretaries of the Norodom Ranariddh Party, the director general of the AKP of Cambodia; the acting director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

The visitors laid wreaths and bunches of flowers before the portraits of Kim Jong Il and paid a silent tribute to him.

Also the government ministries, institutions, diplomatic missions and personages of different countries paid condolatory visits to the DPRK missions.

Among them were the Togolese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the General Political Bureau of the San Marino Foreign Ministry, missions of the Foreign Ministry of Russia to Ulan-Ude and Khabarovsk, the Swiss permanent mission to the United Nations, the Russian and Saharan and Vietnamese embassies in Mexico, the Luxemburg embassy in London and the president of the Socialist Party of Benin.