North Korea Leadership Watch

Research and Analysis on the DPRK Leadership

KJU Visits Liberation Tower

Kim Jong Un unfurls a ribbon on a floral wreath during a visit to the Liberation Tower in Pyongyang on 28 July 2022 (Photo: KCNA).

Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) visited the Liberation Tower in Pyongyang on 28 July (Thursday) to mark the armistice of the Fatherland Liberation (Korean) War.  Also in attendance were Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Secretary for Organizational Affairs Jo Yong Won (Cho Yo’ng-wo’n), WPK Secretary for Military Affairs Pak Jong Chon (Pak Cho’ng-ch’o’n), WPK Secretary for Defense Industry Ri Pyong Chol (Ri Pyo’ng-ch’o’l), WPK Secretary for Workers’ and Social Organizations Ri Il Hwan (Ri Il-hwan), Minister of National Defense VMar Ri Yong Gil (Ri Yo’ng-kil), Korean People’s Army (KPA) General Political Bureau Director Jong Kyong Thaek (Cho’ng Kyo’ng-t’aek), Chief of the KPA General Staff Gen. Ri Thae Sop (Ri T’ae-op), WPK International Affairs Department Director Kim Song Nam (Kim So’ng-nam), WPK United Front Department Director Ri Son Gwon (Ri So’n-gwon) and Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (Ch’oe So’n-hu’i).

Kim Jong Un talks with Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, after arriving at the Liberation Tower for a wreath laying ceremony on 28 July 2022 (Photo: KCTV)

A wreath in KJU’s name was placed at the base of the tower as solemn music played.  Wreaths from the WPK Central Committee and State Affairs Commission were also placed in front of the tower.  Floral ribbons on the wreath read “martyrs of the Chinese People’s Volunteers will always be alive.”

A KPA honor guard marches past the Liberation Tower during a leadership wreath laying ceremony on 28 July 2022 (Photo: KCTV)

A view of wreaths from Kim Jong Un, the WPK Central Committee and the State Affairs Commission in front of the Liberation Tower (Photo: KCTV).

KJU “paid high tribute to the martyrs of the CPV who unsparingly shed their valuable blood in the same trenches for repulsing the imperialist aggression for the sake of the common cause.”  A KPA honor guard marched past the tower, then KJU walked around the Liberation Tower with the other visitors.  He said that the “brilliant combat merits and feats of the CPV officers and men, obviously recorded in the history of the great victory in the Fatherland Liberation War would be immortal and that the DPRK-China friendship, sealed in blood and further cemented in all sorts of trying ordeals of history would be carries forward and developed generation after generation along with the dynamic advance of the socialist cause.”

 

An affiliate of 38 North