Park told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) that he learned about President Ho from his father’s stories about a leader who devoted his life and efforts to national independence and reunification.

After reading books on the President, the journalist decided to travel to Vietnam with his wife after Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) established diplomatic ties in 1992.

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President Ho is the symbol of the relentless struggles for national independence and the reunification of the Vietnamese people, he stressed.

He cited documents newly found in Paris as saying that the President had befriended some Korean Provisional Government officials in 1920.

The Vietnamese leader took a long trip from Chongqing to Shanghai (China) to meet his Korean friends and congratulate them after the Korean Peninsula was liberated from the Japanese fascists at the end of World War II, he added.

A Korean who loves Vietnam, Park wants to join Vietnamese people in celebrating President Ho’s 130th birthday (May 19th), he said.

Vice president for the Americas and the Caribbean from the International Democratic Women's Federation, Elizabeth Tortosa, who is the wife of secretary-general of the Communist Party of Venezuela Jesus Faria Tortosa, shared her memory about her meeting with President Ho Chi Minh in 1965.

Elizabeth arrived in Vietnam as part of a campaign for the release of her husband who was in bad health in prison. She recalled that during the meeting with President Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, the President inquired about her husband’s health and expressed his support of the solidarity campaign for his release.

“I was impressed by the simple style, the wisdom and the revolutionary modesty of the President,” Elizabeth said.

According to her, the meeting was one of the biggest political lessons for her, and President Ho Chi Minh was among great revolutionary leaders of the 20th century./.

BTA