An enlarged meeting of North Korea’s powerful Central Military Commission this weekend may have been another step towards Kim Jong Un formally authorizing a third nuclear test, widely expected to be carried out in the near future.

The public announcement of the enlarged meeting of the military commission, which also featured members of the Korean People’s Army Supreme Command and commanding officers of North Korea’s large combined units, was highly unusual, and perhaps unprecedented.

Though a KCNA report issued on the meeting this weekend did not mention a nuclear test specifically, it did say that “the enlarged meeting of the