It is very encouraging that the U.S. is willing to have direct talks with North Korea - this is a major improvement over diplomacy that consisted of shouting insults at each other.
There are two key questions that must be addressed concerning this meeting:
1. What will we talk about? That is, what does the U.S. expect to get, and what is the U.S. willing to give?
2. What will we and North Korea be doing while we are talking?
1. What will we talk about? That is, what does the U.S. expect to get, and what is the U.S. willing to give?
2. What will we and North Korea be doing while we are talking?
There is good reason to talk with North Korea, but only if we are talking about something that is worth doing and that could be reasonably verified - otherwise we are setting ourselves up for a major diplomatic failure.
I highly favor talks, but such talks must be based on realistic expectations of what can be negotiated and what can be verified.
You can read my full statement on the proposed US/DPRK summit and thoughts on what we could possible negotiate towards here: wjperryproject.org/notes-from-the…
Why verification of any proposed North Korean denuclearization will be a tricky task: nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/…
