A group of North Korean journalists left for the United States Saturday to attend a photo exhibition set to open next week, marking the centenary of the birth of the North's late founding leader, Kim Il-sung, the country's media said.

The North's delegation, led by Kim Chang-gwang, vice director of the Korean Central News Agency, will attend the opening ceremony of the photo exhibition scheduled for March 15, the news agency said in a report.

The photo exhibition, to be jointly organized with The Associated Press, is scheduled to run until April 13, two days before the late leader's 100th birthday, the American news agency said in its Web site.

Kim Il-sung, who founded North Korea in 1948 with the backing of the old Soviet Union, died in 1994. He is still revered as a natinal hero in the isolated communist country.

The photo exhibition is part of joint programs being pushed by the KCNA to promote its nascent relations with the U.S. news agency. The AP opened a bureau in Pyongyang in January, the first international news agency with a full-time presence in the reclusive country to dispatch texts, photos and video.

The KCNA said the New York exhibition will showcase photos archived by two news agencies, including the North's late founding leader and his deceased son Kim Jong-il who died of heart failure in December last year, as well as people and life in the communist state.

The U.S. and North Korea, who fought against each other in the 1950-53 Korean War, have no diplomatic relations. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent. (Yonhap)