N.K. leader Kim congratulates Hu

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il vowed to solidify his country`s relations with China in a message sent Wednesday to Chinese President Hu Jintao on the eve of the neighbor`s 60th anniversary, state media said, according to Yonhap News.

"The DPRK-China friendship is a treasured common wealth of the peoples of the two nations," Kim was quoted by the Korean Central News Agency as saying in the message. DPRK stands for the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea, the North`s official name.

"It is the consistent position of our party and the government of our republic to treasure DPRK-China friendship that has undergone all kinds of historical tribulations and continues to solidify and develop generation after generation," he said.

Kim called the founding of the People`s Republic of China on Oct. 1 in 1959 a "historic event" that fundamentally changed Chinese lives and their history. He also praised China as a "distinctive socialist nation" that has successfully taken root through "science-oriented development."