Editor’s note: What If? is an NK News series featuring scenarios about North Korea’s future. Articles in this series draw on verified facts and rigorous analysis to explore hypothetical events in the years and decades ahead.

Several years after the U.S. and North Korea concluded a stunning nuclear deal, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency can officially confirm what so many thought impossible: The DPRK has dismantled its last nuclear facility and fully denuclearized. In return, the U.N. lifts the last remaining sanctions on Pyongyang.