SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea held on Sunday a mass rally in Pyongyang to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of leader Kim Jong-il while the country is jubilant over its successful launch of a long-range missile.

   North Korea's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station, monitored in Seoul, broadcast live the commemoration ceremony held in late morning in a Pyongyang stadium. Current leader and Kim's third son, Jong-un, attended the rally along with other top officials.

   The North announced that Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack on Dec. 17, 2011, while traveling for a field guidance. He ruled the communist country for 17 years.

   "A national memorial service was held with solemnity here to mark the first anniversary of demise of leader Kim Jong-il," the country's wire news service Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English dispatch.

   During the 70-minute service, Kim Yong-nam, the president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, lauded the accomplishments of the late leader in his memorial address, according to KCNA.

   "He strengthened the Korean People's Army into the matchless revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu, led the unprecedented standoff with imperialism and the U.S. to one victory after another and made the Democratic People's Republic of Korea a world-level military power and legitimate nuclear weapons state," the ceremonial head of the state was quoted as saying in the report.

   The commemoration ceremony was observed while the country is also in jubilation over the Dec. 12 launch of what it calls a rocket carrying a "working satellite," which outside world condemns as a test of rocket technology that could be used for a long-range missile.

   The North hailed the launch as proof of its advanced space technology, a dying wish of the late leader.

   pbr@yna.co.kr
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