Pyongyang, May 5 (KCNA) -- Today marks the 90th anniversary of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, founded by President Kim Il Sung during the anti-Japanese revolutionary war.

The ARF was an influential underground revolutionary organization embracing the broad strata of patriotic people who opposed Japanese imperialism and aspired after the independence of the country.

Regarding it as a key issue deciding the victory of the revolution to unite all the people under the banner of patriotism, the President advanced the policy of forming a permanent organization involving all the anti-Japanese patriotic forces in the mid-1930s and pushed ahead with the preparations for its realization.

He personally worked out the programme, rules and inauguration declaration of the ARF in a campfire of bivouac during arduous battles and march.

Under such preparations, he held a meeting of military and political cadres of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army and proclaimed the founding of the ARF.

The participants were greatly excited to receive the report on bringing about a fresh upsurge in the overall Korean revolution, made by the President at the meeting, and the "Ten-Point Programme of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland", "Inaugural Declaration of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland" and "Rules of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland", personally announced by him.

All the participants in the meeting, including representatives of Chondoists, peasants, teachers and workers, elected the President as chairman of the ARF, reflecting the unanimous will and desire of the Korean people.

The birth of the ARF made it possible to build up the driving force of the revolution with its organizational network as the base and rally all the anti-Japanese patriotic forces firmly and thus mobilize them for the struggle to the liberate the country.

The President wrote in his reminiscences "With the Century" that the birth of the ARF marked a historic event that provided a new turning point for the development of the Korean revolution and gave a bright hope of national liberation. -0-