North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has convened a Central Military Commission meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party and discussed the North's key defense policies amid speculation of an imminent nuclear test.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Wednesday that an expanded meeting of the commission was presided over by Kim the previous day.

It said the meeting was aimed at comprehensively reviewing national defense policies in the first half of the year and confirming pending projects that will build up national defense.

Issues respective to the thorough upholding of the party’s military stances and major defense policies as well as the assignment of important strategic and tactical tasks facing the North's armed forces will be among the agenda items, it said.

The move comes amid external concerns that the North could continue to provoke the outside world in the form of a nuclear test, which will be the first of its kind in five years, following a series of ballistic missile launches this year.

[Photo : YONHAP News]