Present there were Chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) Ho Jong Man and its vice-chairpersons, department directors, chairpersons of the Chongryon headquarters in Kanto, leading officials of the central leadership bodies and affiliates and Korean businessmen

Japanese personages in political, economic, media, social and cultural circles, staff members of foreign embassies, representatives of international bodies and correspondents of foreign media in Japan were invited to the event.

Chairman Ho Jong Man made a speech.

He said that the people in the homeland exerted all efforts on socialist economic construction by frustrating the hostile forces' sanctions on the strength of self-sufficiency and self-reliance true to the historic policy speech made by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at the First Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly, thus achieving radical development in all fields of the national economy.

The era of peace and security, reconciliation and cooperation was opened on the Korean peninsula thanks to Kim Jong Un's outstanding diplomatic strategy, distinguished political ability and strong initiative, he said.

In order to keep this trend, it is important for the U.S. to have a dialogue with the DPRK with a new calculation, he added.

If Japan truly wants to have a dialogue with the DPRK, it has to settle its past according to the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and stop right away its national discrimination and abuses of human rights against Koreans in Japan, he stressed.