Present there were Kim Yong Nam, Pak Pong Ju and other leading officials of the party, state and army, the chairperson of a friendly party, deputies to the Supreme People's Assembly, officials of the party, armed forces and power bodies, social organizations, ministries and national institutions, service personnel of the Korean People's Army and the Korean People's Internal Security Forces and people of merit.

Attending it were heads of the overseas Koreans' delegations and overseas compatriots and the chief of Pyongyang Mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front.

Also present there on invitation were diplomatic envoys and representatives of international organizations, military attaches and their spouses and other foreign guests here.

Kim Yong Nam, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, made a speech.

He said the foundation of the DPRK was a historic event which opened up the new era of building socialist nation centered on the popular masses, an event which provided the Korean people with a genuine motherland for the first time in the nation's history spanning 5 000 years.

The 65-year-long history of the DPRK shines as the glorious revolutionary history of the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il who turned the country into an independent and invincible power which displays its dignity all over the world, he said, adding:

The army and people of the DPRK will uphold the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea and glorify the country as the country of the eternal sun and state of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and build in this land the most powerful country, people's paradise looked up by the world.