North Korea said Friday it is preparing for a grand event celebrating the upcoming 71st anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, with its leader Kim Jong-un sending gifts to war veterans across the nation. North Korea will hold celebrations for the anniversary to mark the country's victory in the Fatherland Liberation War in Pyongyang this week, and participants invited to the event arrived in the capital Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The Korean War, which started with an invasion by North Korea, ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, on July 27, 1953. Since 1996, North Korea has celebrated the armistice signing date as Victory Day, claiming that it won the Liberation War against U.S.-led aggression. For this year's celebrations, authorities have invited war veterans and people with wartime merits, as well as officials and innovative workers in the munitions industry across the country, the KCNA said. Kim has also sent gifts to war vete rans on the occasion of the anniversary. The gifts reflect Kim's wish that the war veterans would "become the strength of the country and the mainstay of the minds of the Korean people who are creditably carrying forward the history and tradition of invincibility," the KCNA reported. Last year, North Korea held a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary by inviting then Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese Communist Party politburo member Li Hongzhong in an apparent move to show its solidarity with Beijing and Moscow, which backed Pyongyang during the war, as Seoul, Washington and Tokyo were bolstering three-way security cooperation. Source: Yonhap News Agency
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