North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with war veterans and attended celebrations marking the 71st anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, the North’s state media said Sunday.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, when tank-led North Korean troops invaded South Korea. The United States and 20 other allied countries fought on the side of South Korea under the U.N. flag. The conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, on July 27, 1953.

Kim attended a meeting with war veterans who had worked at key posts in the ruling party, the government and the military held at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium the previous day, the Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) said.

Kim did not deliver a speech, but Ri Il-hwan, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, called on the younger generation to honor the war veterans.

“It is the honor of our generation to remember not only with pain but also with honor the dramatic era that changed the years of the mo
st disastrous war into the greatest victory,” Ri was quoted as saying.

The participants watched a video highlighting the “feats and fighting spirit” of the wartime generation, followed by an evening parade, fireworks and a nighttime performance, according to the KCNA.

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