Attending the meeting were personages from the State Duma, the Foreign Ministry, the Russian Association for Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the DPRK, the Korean War Veterans' Council, the Academy of Sciences and the Group for International Solidarity with the DPRK.

The participants laid a floral basket and bouquets before the portraits of smiling President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il.

At the meeting a keynote speech was made, to be followed by speeches.

Victor Petrov, chairman of the Russian Association for Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the DPRK, said in his keynote speech that Kim Il Sung liberated the Korean people from the Japanese imperialist colonial rule and founded the genuine people's state advocating the interests of the broad working masses, which is the greatest event in the 5000-year-old history of the Korean nation.

Parfyonov, deputy to the State Duma, Lyavkov, section chief of the Asia 1 Department of the Foreign Ministry, and other speakers said that the 74-year-old history of the DPRK is the one of struggle in which it defeated the armed invasion of foreign forces and has built and developed the socialist society centered on the masses under the uplifted banner of independence despite ceaseless sanctions and pressure.

They stressed that they would strive to develop the friendship between Russia and the DPRK in the future, saying that the present situation demands that the relations of friendship and cooperation between Russia and the DPRK are further developed and that to further develop the tradition of friendship between the two countries is the way of standing against the moves of imperialism.