The riding will mark an occasion in showing the aspiration and will of fellow countrymen to usher in a new era of independent reunification, peace and prosperity under the unfurled banner of the June 15 joint declaration in the idea of By Our Nation Itself.

Present there were members of the Russia-cross Korean Peninsula car riding group headed by Kim Chil Song, first vice-chairman of the International United Confederation of Koreans who is chairman of the United Confederation of Koreans in Russia, Ri Song Gon, vice-director of the Agency of Overseas Korean Affairs, officials concerned and lecturers of the Paektusan Revolutionary Battle Sites.

Speeches were made at the ceremony.

They said: We have the inaugural ceremony of the "Paektu-Halla car riding for supporting the peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula" in Mt. Paektu, the holy mountain of the revolution, on which the soul of the nation took root and which is associated with footsteps made by President Kim Il Sung during the anti-Japanese bloody war.

The division of the country is the greatest tragedy of the nation, they said, adding: To reunify the country is the ardent aspiration of fellow countrymen which brooks no further delay.

The riding will help all Koreans in the north, south and abroad have the firm will to put an end of the history of division forced by outsiders and bring earlier the new morning of reunification with the concerted efforts of the nation, they stressed.

The riding being held amid the attention and expectation of the governments of the DPRK and Russia will have a good influence on the daily growing DPRK-Russia friendly relations, they said.

Then the riding group left Mt. Paektu, the ancestral mountain.