<THREAD>In February at a @CarnegieEndow event, Jina Kim, a ROK analyst, said that South Koreans used to worry that the U.S. wouldn't sacrifice Los Angeles to save Seoul. Today they worry that the U.S. will sacrifice Seoul to save Los Angeles. (1/n)
If U.S. analyst and officials are concerned that the ROK-DPRK joint statement doesn't respect U.S. interests on denuclearization, well, that's what happens when an ally becomes scared that the U.S. may wage a catastrophic war that the ally strongly opposes. (2/n)
Indeed, there were times last year, when I became deeply and genuinely worried that we would stumble into a such a war. So the respite of tensions, with the testing moratorium and the summit, is a real relief. (3/n)
And yet, peace building can only go so far without denuclearization. Unless the U.S. changes policy (always possible with Trump), a peace treaty won't be signed unless North Korea gives up its nukes (and ballistic missiles? and chemical? and biological?) weapon first. (4/n)
So the language on nukes matters. And it's boiler plate: "realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula." There are no specifics about how and when. (5/n)
This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either, (6/n)
So, no, @nytimes, it's premature to say that North Korea has agreed to remove all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. (Hint: Sometimes paraphrasing diplomatic language for a lede can be misleading.) (7/n) 
Ironically, you even published an excellent op-ed from @ArmsControlWonk explaining that the ambiguity in the term "denuclearization." (8/n)
nytimes.com/2018/04/04/opi…
nytimes.com/2018/04/04/opi…
Bottom line: This process will remain susceptible to collapse without real progress on denuclearization, which we're not seeing. (9/9) carnegieendowment.org/2018/04/24/les…
