hankyoreh

The Olympic torch's first-ever relay in North Korea, one of the closest communist allies of China, was marked by enthusiasm Monday, media reports said, despite anti-Chinese protesters having marred the event elsewhere in the world.

The torch travelled a 20-km route through the North Korean capital where about 400,000 citizens lined in the city's main streets, waving paper flowers and small flags, according to Chinese news reports.

Pyongyang has criticized worldwide demonstrations against the Beijing Olympics and supported China's hosting of the event.

Protests over China's human rights record and crackdown on demonstrations in Tibet have dogged the torch's relay, which began in Athens, the Greek city where the Olympic Games originated. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was not seen at the ceremony.

But he "is paying great interest in the success of the Olympic torch relay," Pak Hak-son, chairman of the country's Olympic committee, was quoted by Kyodo News as saying in the opening ceremony.

"We express our basic position that while some impure forces have opposed China's hosting of the event and have been disruptive, we believe that consists of a challenge to the Olympic idea," Pak said.

Kim Yong-nam, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly who serves as the North's ceremonial head of state, presided over the ceremony, attended by about 10,000 people, Choson Sinbo, the newspaper of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan said on Monday.

Kim passed the torch to the first runner Pak Du-ik, the North Korean soccer striker who led his national team to the quarter finals of the 1966 World Cup in England.

Cheering Pyongyang citizens -- men clad in dark dress suits and women in colorful traditional Korean clothing -- waved pink and red paper flowers, the national flags of the North and China and small flags displaying the Beijing Olympics logo, standing along the route decorated by banners reading "Beijing 2008." Some danced in groups to the tune of military marching music.

"This will be a beautiful memory that will be left with me," Pak told Kyodo after his 250-meter run that began beneath the Juche Tower, a major landmark in Pyongyang. "I will never forget this."

Eighty people, 56 North Koreans and 24 Chinese, carried the torch before it reached the Kim Il-sung Stadium at around 3 a.m. for a closing ceremony, according to the Choson Sinbo.

Jong Song-ok, who became the North's national heroine after winning the women's marathon gold at the 1999 World Athletics Championships in Seville, Spain, was the last runner, reports said.

The flame arrived in Pyongyang's Sunan Airport before dawn aboard a chartered flight from South Korea over the West Sea.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported the arrival on Monday, but there was no report from North Korean news media on the torch relay's launch.

In Seoul, demonstrators including North Korean defectors staged protests against China's forced repatriation of refugees from the North on Sunday. Sporadic scuffles broke out between Chinese students and anti-Chinese protesters. Several people were arrested for trying to disrupt the relay, according to police here.

The torch is to leave for Vietnam in the evening before going to Hong Kong and Macau.

SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap)