Updated at 17:45 KST to include more details from the state television footage

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday oversaw a meeting of the ruling party Politburo (PB), state media reported Sunday, discussing the country’s measures to prevent a “virus epidemic” and promoting several officials.

The meeting, which comes ahead of an expected session of the country’s rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), largely focused on the coronavirus, according to a dispatch by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The meeting reportedly adopted a “joint resolution” by the ruling party Central Committee (CC), the State Affairs Commission (SAC), and the Cabinet of the DPRK — “On more thoroughly taking national measures for protecting the life and safety of our people from the worldwide epidemic disease.”

The resolution detailed measures to “intensify the nationwide emergency anti-epidemic services” and “push ahead with the economic construction, increasing national defence capability and stabilizing the people’s livelihood this year,” the KCNA reported.

It also called for “consistently taking strict national countermeasures to thoroughly check the inroads of the virus in the light of the steady spread of the worldwide epidemic disease.”

North Korea has since January 30 implemented a “national emergency quarantine system” in a bid to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus in its territory, taking steps including an effective closure of its borders and holding suspected cases under quarantine.

An enlarged Political Bureau meeting was also held in late February to discuss the country’s COVID-19 prevention effort, in which Kim Jong Un dismissed two top officials Ri Man Gon and Pak Thae Dok from ruling party CC vice-chairmen position.

Ri, however, was shown in the Politburo meeting photos dispatched by state media on Sunday, appearing to be retaining full PB membership.

Discussing a number of state projects scheduled to be complete in time for the ruling party’s founding anniversary in October, Saturday’s meeting reportedly discussed how the threat from the global pandemic outbreak may hamper such plans.

“Such reality shows that it has become impossible to remove the danger of the virus infection in a short time and such environment can become a condition creating some obstacles to our struggle and progress,” the report said.

Taking “prevailing internal and external climates” into consideration, the Politburo reportedly discussed matters of “adjusting and changing some policy tasks in the work of implementing the decisions made at the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the WPK” late last year.

The meeting also lauded the “strict top-class emergency anti-epidemic measures” taken since January, assessing the country’s quarantine measures so far as being “very stable,” state media said.

Meanwhile, in an unprecedented move under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, North Korean state media as of Sunday was yet to report on a planned parliamentary session originally set to convene on Friday.

While the reason for the apparent change in schedule remains unknown, news of Saturday’s Politburo meeting suggests that session may have been postponed by a couple of days.

One in-country source told NK News on Saturday that local “hearsay” suggested the SPA session may have been delayed until Monday.

North Korea’s ruling party often meets ahead of SPA sessions: a Politburo expanded meeting and a plenary meeting were held in the lead-up to 2019’s April SPA session.

Saturday’s Politburo meeting also discussed budgetary issues and personnel changes to be presented to the upcoming SPA.

Newly-elected a full member of the Political Bureau was Pak Jong Chon, who currently serves as chief of staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA).

The promotion of Pak follows his election as an alternate member of the Political Bureau last December.

Ri Son Gwon, North Korea’s recently-appointed foreign minister, and Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, were also elected alternate members of the PB.

The foreign minister was among several DPRK officials to be promoted from alternate members of the ruling party Central Committee (CC) to full members.

Also elected as party Central Committee members were Ri Thae Il, Jon Hak Chol, and Kim Chol.

Kim Jong Un as Saturday’s meeting reportedly urged officials to “carry out the policy lines of the Party Central Committee with greater consciousness and strenuous efforts in line with the joint resolution.”

The KCNA report hailed the importance of Saturday’s Politburo meeting, adding that “it set forth the realistic tasks for timely and correctly resolving the important issues arising in the Korean revolution at present.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham