SEOUL, July 13 (AJP) - North Korean Premier Pak Thae-song has pledged to work with China to expand bilateral relations across all fronts, sending a message of thanks to Chinese Premier Li Qiang after wrapping up a three-day official visit to Beijing, the North's state media reported Monday.
The visit, timed to the 65th anniversary of the treaty that binds the two countries in a mutual defense pact, capped a month of unusually rapid diplomatic traffic between Pyongyang and Beijing following Chinese President Xi Jinping's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month.
In the message, sent as he departed China on Sunday, Pak thanked Li for the hospitality extended to his delegation and said he was satisfied with the results of the trip, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). He expressed a willingness to "work together with Chinese comrades to comprehensively expand and develop the traditional DPRK-China relations of friendship and cooperation in line with the demands of the new era," the agency said.
Pak led a party and government delegation to China from July 10 to 12 to attend events marking the anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. The pact, signed in Beijing on July 11, 1961 by North Korean founder Kim Il-sung and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, obliges each side to provide military support if the other comes under armed attack, a clause that has made it the bedrock of the relationship for more than six decades.
The reception Pak received signaled how much weight Beijing placed on the occasion. He paid a courtesy call on Xi on July 10, held talks with Li the following day, and met Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and the party's third-ranking official, as well as Cai Qi, a Politburo Standing Committee member ranked fifth in the hierarchy.
South Korea's unification ministry said the trip marked the first time in seven years that Pyongyang had dispatched a government delegation to Beijing for a treaty anniversary, and noted that the North raised the rank of its chief delegate to premier from the parliamentary vice chairman it sent in 2019.
On the final day of the visit, the delegation toured the Museum of the Communist Party of China and a subway control center in Beijing, after inspecting a green low-carbon circular economy demonstration site run by China Resources Recycling Group in the port city of Tianjin. In the museum's guest book, Pak wrote that he hoped the Chinese people would "continue to achieve new successes in building a modern socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China," KCNA reported.
The delegation flew home Sunday, seen off at the airport by Chinese officials including State Council Secretary-General Wu Zhenglong and Wang Yajun, China's ambassador to North Korea. First Vice Premier Kim Tok-hun greeted the delegation on arrival in Pyongyang.
The trip built on momentum from Xi's visit to Pyongyang last month, his first since 2019, where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening strategic communication and expanding cooperation in a summit and joint statement. At those talks, Xi proposed that the two countries grandly commemorate the treaty's 65th anniversary, according to Chinese state media.
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