Another love letter

Richard Johnson appeared with standard guest Scott Snyder on VOA's Washington Talk program this weekend. Johnson emphasized the need for working level talks among experts between North Korea and the US to get a realistic plan for implementation of steps to denuclearize North Korea. An experienced participant in nuclear negotiations with JCPOA and Six Party experience, he also pointed out that China thinks in terms of years and years in a negotiating process. He opined that the Trump administration was seeking tangible results within his term, using a top down method. His opinion was that this was impractical and ineffective. Mr. Johnson also referred to the first Singapore summit and the parallel simultaneous approach envisioned in the joint statement produced which included security matters and normalization of relations in addition to denuclearization measures. Mr. Johnson suggested sending a US team of technical experts to Yongbyun to get things started. He also mentioned that having an international team of technical experts for verification of any steps taken in the denuclearization process might be better received by North Korea.