The prime minister praised President Kim Il Sung as the great leader always remembered by the world people.

The prime minister said that Mali congratulates the DPRK on having protected its country's sovereignty from the imperialists' moves to stifle it and registered great successes in different fields of the national economy including the metal and machine-building industries by channeling efforts into economic construction thanks to the Songun politics of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.

Dioncounda Traore, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the African Party for the Solidarity and Justice of Mali, received the ambassador on the same day.

He said he was pleased that Kim Jong Il has not only victoriously led party, state and army affairs full of energy but conducted positive external activities, increasing the influence of socialism worldwide.

He noted that his party is proud of maintaining deep relations with the Workers' Party of Korea invariably pursuing socialism and that he would boost the ties between the two parties in the days ahead, too.