The Swiss preparatory committee for 2017 Meeting Praising Great Persons of Mt. Paektu, the Switzerland-Korea Committee and the Swiss Group for the Study of the Juche Idea said this in a joint statement on October 4.

The statement went on:

Leader Kim Jong Il was elected as general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea on October 8, Juche 86 (1997), 19 years ago.

Thanks to HE Kim Jong Il who successfully carried forward the idea and cause of President Kim Il Sung, the DPRK successfully launched its first satellite Kwangmyongsong-1 one year after that and succeeded in the first underground nuclear test in Juche 95 (2006).

The way for independence, Songun and socialism is the way HE Kim Jong Il firmly followed.

He showed the imperialists and reactionaries who vociferated about "collapse" of the DPRK that no formidable enemy can dare bring down socialist Korea.

He paved a wide avenue to independent and peaceful reunification of the country by formulating the lines for national reunification put forward by President Kim Il Sung as the three charters of national reunification.

Kim Jong Il's era was the great and glorious one.