Why the U.S. Must Trust but Verify with North Korea

Posted: July 5th, 2018

By Joseph DeTrani

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is former Special envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea and the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea and the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, while also serving as a Special Adviser to the Director of National Intelligence. He currently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia National Laboratories. The views expressed represent those of the author.

As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to North Korea seeking signs of progress after the recent Singapore summit, some of his colleagues in the U.S. Intelligence community are doubting whether actions will meet up to words when it comes to North Korea’s promise to denuclearize.

Ambassador Joe DeTrani has just returned from South Korea, where he attended two conferences that addressed the issue and spent time with representatives from the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, while meeting with South Korean government and former government officials, and academics. The focus was on developments with North Korea and the path ahead. This is what he filed exclusively for The Cipher Brief:

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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