Pyongyang, February 6 (KCNA) -- February 8, 1948 is the day when the Korean People's Army, the regular revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK, was founded.

After the liberation of the country on August 15, 1945, President Kim Il Sung set the founding of a powerful regular army as an essential requirement for building an independent and sovereign state and made tireless efforts to realize it.

In his speech before military and political cadres, he said that our country should found its powerful army capable of defending the country and safeguarding the gains of the revolution in order to become a full-fledged independent and sovereign state.

The President made public immortal classic works such as "On Establishing the Pyongyang Institute" and "Let Us Found a True People's Army, a Modern Regular Army" and thus provided an immortal programme to be regarded as guidelines in building the Juche-oriented revolutionary armed forces and energetically led the work to found the regular revolutionary armed forces.

He designated the site for the Pyongyang Institute, the first base for training military and political cadres, and established the Central Security Officers Training School capable of training military and political cadres of all services and arms.

He organized the Security Officers Training Center training the core of the regular army and, on this basis, established and expanded various services, arms and sub-units.

He saw to it that newly-organized units of services and arms applied Korean-style military regulations, manuals, command and management methods and tactics and laid material and technical foundations for building the regular army including various kinds of military hardware and munitions.

On the basis of these preparations, he proclaimed the founding of the Korean People's Army, the successor to the anti-Japanese armed struggle and the revolutionary regular armed forces.

The birth of the Juche-oriented regular army enabled the DPRK to emerge as a dignified country with its own firm armed guarantees from the first day of its founding, and the DPRK people to lead a happy life on the land defended by their regular army for the first time in history and accelerate the building of a new country as full-fledged masters of the people's government. -0-