Kim: China friendship ‘sealed in blood’ will continue growing

Seoul, Jul 29 (EFE).- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defended the friendship between Pyongyang and Beijing, a relationship he said is “sealed in blood” and that it would continue to develop in the future, state media reported Friday.

“The friendship between North Korea and China is founded on all kinds of historical evidence, will be immortal, and will develop generation after generation along with the advancement of the socialist cause,” Kim said in remarks reported by state news agency KCNA.

The North Korean leader made the remarks Thursday, on a visit to the Sino-Korean Friendship Tower in Pyongyang, which honors Chinese soldiers who fought for the North in the Korean War (1950-53), and on which Kim laid a wreath on the occasion of the Victory Day celebration Wednesday.

On Jul. 27, this national holiday is celebrated in the territory, in which Pyongyang commemorates the end of said war, the civil conflict that confronted the peninsula and became its current partition into North and South. The confrontation ended with an armistice, not a peace declaration.

During the visit to the monument, Kim also spoke of the combat “merits” of Chinese soldiers and volunteers, saying “the martyrs of this conflict will always remain alive.”

Kim’s statements come after the leader of the North Korean regime warned the United States, in a speech delivered during Victory Day, that he is ready for any military conflict and the mobilization of his “nuclear deterrent.” He threatened neighboring South Korea with “annihilation” in the face of any attempt to overthrow the regime.

North Korea has recently insisted on friendly ties with China amid a prolonged deadlock in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington, and a growing rivalry between China and the US. EFE

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