Pyongyang, July 28 (KCNA) -- Receptions were given at the People's Palace of Culture, Okryu Restaurant and Chongryu Restaurant here on Sunday, the 72nd anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War.

Present there as the guests were war veterans and persons of wartime merits who participated in the celebrations of V-Day.

Present there were Pak Thae Song, Choe Ryong Hae, Pak Jong Chon and other leading officials of the Party, government and armed forces organs.

Congratulatory speeches were made at the receptions.

Speakers warmly congratulated the war veterans for defending and glorifying at the cost of their blood the precious country to be lived by all generations to come on the occasion of the great V-Day which turned our state into heroic Korea and made its people the heroic people.

They said that the venues of the receptions are full of boundless reverence for those who defended all the precious things from the enemy's plunder and have glorified the 80-year history of modern Korea with victory and glory as the witnesses who experienced the glory of August 15, the day when a radical turn was brought about in the destiny of the people, and are remembering the eventful days of the founding of our Party and Republic.

They noted that the Workers' Party of Korea and the Korean people are always remembering the fact that the costly self-sacrifice, blood and sweat of the victorious wartime generation permeate each page of history in which the national name and the national flag of the newly-born DPRK have shined as a symbol of the Korean people's heroism and the signpost of anti-imperialist independence before the times, and the true path of socialist construction was pioneered.

They stressed that they would firmly defend the dignity and honor of the country and attain without fail the grand goals of building a prosperous power by courageously struggling with the faith of absolute loyalty and indomitable fighting spirit handed down by the wartime brave soldiers, bearing in mind the desire and earnest request of the war veterans who wish their beloved country to be strong and prosperous forever.

The participants in the receptions toasted the eternal victory and prosperity of the DPRK, the gains of the revolution, in which the great soul of the forerunners are permeated, the glory and happiness of the people, and the health and eternal youth of the victorious wartime generation. -0-