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What’s NOT in the summit agreement ?- that’s the revealing part.

US-North Korea summit agreement is most revealing for what it leaves out, The Conversation, Benjamin Habib, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University, 12 June 18 

“……..it is not so much what is in the joint statement as much as what has been left out that is the big story.

To tease this out, let’s consider the four specific points of agreement articulated in the joint statement released by US President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un at the conclusion of today’s summit…..

The joint statement gets interesting in article three, in which “the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”

The wording around “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” reflects the North Korean interpretation of the concept, which has been well-documented in the lead-up to the summit.

Tellingly, there is no mention of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” (CVID) in the statement text, which is a clear departure from long-standing US policy.

…….. My take-home message from the omission of CVID from the joint statement is confirmation that North Korea under Kim Jong-un is never going to willingly denuclearise.

In “working toward complete denuclearisation,” North Korea may agree to a nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing moratorium, decommission obsolete nuclear facilities, or even promise to freeze production of new nuclear weapons, without ever having to compromise its nuclear weapons capability……..

The final paragraph of the joint statement commits US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with an as yet unidentified high level North Korean official. It will be at these meetings and beyond where the “new US-DPRK relations” will start to take shape. https://theconversation.com/us-north-korea-summit-agreement-is-most-revealing-for-what-it-leaves-out-98094?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2013%202018%20-%201

June 13, 2018 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | politics international