North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosted a military meeting of the ruling Workers' Party to discuss new policies aimed at boosting the country's nuclear deterrence, state-run media reported Sunday.
As denuclearization talks with the United States remain locked in a standstill over sanctions relief, North Korea may step up its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, foreign affairs experts say.
Late last year, Kim pledged to unveil a "new strategic weapon" to be possessed by North Korea "in the near future."
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The military meeting, which appears to have taken place on Saturday, was the first gathering of its kind since December.
The Sunday edition of the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling party, ran on its front page photos showing Kim in attendance at the event.
The Korean Central News Agency said the meeting "discussed important military steps and organizational and political measures to further bolster up the overall armed forces" of North Korea.
It marks his first appearance in state-run media since May 2, when the news agency reported his attendance at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a newly opened fertilizer factory in Sunchon, near Pyongyang, the previous day.
Speculation subsequently mounted that he was staying in the nation's eastern port city of Wonsan as part of preventive steps against the new coronavirus.
The photos released Sunday by North Korea's most influential newspaper notably showed no attendees at the military gathering wearing face masks, signaling the country's confidence that it has brought the pandemic under control.
Since earlier this year, North Korea has cut off traffic to and from China and Russia. Pyongyang claims to have zero cases of coronavirus within its borders.
