Ratcheting up hostile rhetoric against Seoul and Washington, North Korea announced a plan to hold a plenary meeting of its party "to discuss an important issue," its official media said Wednesday.

According to the report by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of (North) Korea announced a day earlier its decision to convene a plenary meeting later this month.

The meeting aims "to discuss and decide an important issue for victoriously advancing the Korean revolution and make a drastic turn in accomplishing the Juche revolutionary cause," it said, without further elaboration.

According to the party's regulations revised in 2010, the party's plenary meeting shall be convened at least once a year to "discuss and decide key issues of the time the party is facing."

The decision came a day after the military of the communist country ordered all of its artillery units to adopt a "No. 1 combat readiness posture" to target the U.S. and South Korea, flaring up tensions further on the Korean Peninsula. The unruly North also warned on Tuesday of "an imminent nuclear war" on the Korean Peninsula.

The threat is the latest in the North's war-mongering rhetoric over the past weeks in response to last week's annual joint military drill between the U.S. and South Korea, and in retaliation for fresh sanctions by the U.N. Security Council for its third nuclear test conducted in February. (Yonhap News)