The New York Times International - 09.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 | 7

world

President Trump said on Saturday that
he had canceled a secret meeting at
Camp David with Taliban leaders and
the president of Afghanistan and had
called off monthslong negotiations with
the Afghan insurgent group that ap-
peared to be nearing a peace agree-
ment.
“Unbeknownst to almost everyone,”
Mr. Trump wrote in a series of tweets,
Taliban leaders and the Afghan presi-
dent, Ashraf Ghani, were headed to the
United States on Saturday for what
would have been a historic meeting at
Camp David.
But Mr. Trump angrily said that “in
order to build false leverage,” the Tal-
iban had admitted to a suicide car bomb
attack on Thursday that had killed an
American soldier and 11 others in the
capital of Kabul. “I immediately can-
celed the meeting and called off peace
negotiations,” he wrote.
“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire
during these very important peace
talks, and would even kill 12 innocent
people, then they probably don’t have
the power to negotiate a meaningful
agreement anyway,” Mr. Trump wrote.
“How many more decades are they will-
ing to fight?”
Mr. Trump’s announcement was star-
tling for multiple reasons. A surprise
summit at Camp David with leaders of
an insurgent group that has killed thou-
sands of Americans since the October
2001 invasion of Afghanistan would
have been a sensational diplomatic
gambit, on par with Mr. Trump’s meet-
ings with the once-reclusive North Ko-
rean leader, Kim Jong-un. A senior ad-
ministration official said the meeting
had been planned for Monday, just two
days before the anniversary of the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks, which were plotted
from Afghanistan and led to the United
States’ invasion of the country.
The move also appears to scuttle —
for now — Mr. Trump’s longstanding
hope to deliver on a campaign promise

to withdraw American troops from an

18-year conflict that he has called an

aimless boondoggle. It comes amid

stubborn resistance within Afghani-

stan’s government about the peace

agreement that had been under discus-

sion, not only for security reasons but

because Mr. Ghani has been determined

to preserve an election planned for Sept.

28, which he is favored to win. The Tal-

iban have insisted on postponing the

election.

Several people familiar with the diplo-

macy between the Trump administra-

tion and the Taliban puzzled over Mr.

Trump’s stated decision to cancel peace

negotiations entirely in response to one

American casualty, however tragic. The

Taliban had not agreed to halt their at-

tacks on Americans in advance of a for-

mal agreement. That raised the ques-

tion of whether Mr. Trump might have

been looking for a pretext because the

talks had run into trouble.

Many details of the scrapped Camp

David meeting were unclear on Satur-

day night. The senior Trump adminis-

tration official said that the decision to

cancel the meeting had been made on

Thursday, but that Mr. Trump had de-

layed his announcement. On Friday, Af-

ghan officials confirmed that Mr. Ghani

had postponed a planned meeting in

Washington. (Taliban representatives

have not confirmed that they ever

planned to attend such a meeting.)

It was also unclear whether Mr.

Trump’s halt to the peace negotiations

would be permanent. The president has

reversed such decisions in short order

before. In May 2018, for instance, he

abruptly canceled his second summit

with Mr. Kim, only to reschedule it days

later. But several people familiar with

the Afghan talks said on Saturday that it

could be difficult to restart them.

The peace negotiations have been un-

derway since last winter, when Mr.

Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan,

Zalmay Khalilzad, began trekking to

Doha, Qatar, for meetings with Taliban

representatives. United States and for-

eign officials said that the talks had

reached an advanced stage and, until

Saturday night, that an agreement with

the Pashtun insurgent group that once

harbored the Qaeda mastermind Osama

bin Laden was close at hand.

In nine rounds of negotiations, Mr.

Khalilzad painstakingly worked toward

what was described as a phased peace

agreement — initially a deal between

the United States and the Taliban that

would open the door for direct negotia-

tions between the Afghan sides, before

all of it came together into a final Afghan

peace deal.

Mr. Khalilzad had proposed drawing

down American military troops in ex-

change for a partial cease-fire by the

Taliban. In a recent interview with the

Afghan channel ToloNews, he said 5,

United States forces would leave Af-

ghanistan within 135 days after the

agreement was signed.

As for the remaining 8,600 American

forces, they would leave according to a

gradual timeline that officials said could

be within 16 months.

That would allow Mr. Trump to de-

clare that he had ended a long a long and

increasingly unpopular conflict and to

boast that he had achieved an outcome

his predecessor, President Barack

Obama, had sought in vain.

Critics of the nascent agreement — in-

cluding the former American command-

er in Afghanistan, the retired Army gen-

eral David Petraeus — have warned that

it could lead to the return of Al Qaeda.

Several have invoked the example of Mr.

Obama’s troop withdrawal from Iraq,

which allowed for the emergence of the

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Those critics have pointed to a contin-

ued high tempo of Taliban attacks as a

sign that the theocratic insurgent group

cannot set aside violence. The bombing

cited by the president involved a car

bomb detonated Thursday at a check-

point near the American Embassy.

Afghan government officials who

have been briefed on the negotiations

privately said Mr. Khalilzad did not

force enough concessions from the Tal-

iban to ensure stability as the American

military leaves Afghanistan.

One official said the agreement be-

tween Mr. Khalilzad and the Taliban

would not assure national elections on

Sept. 28. Rather than requiring a nation-

wide cease-fire, it calls for a reduction of

violence in Kabul and Parwan. And, the

Afghan government official said, it may

allow the Taliban to continue referring

to itself in official conduct as the “Is-

lamic Emirate” — as it did when the ex-

tremist group was ruling Afghanistan

with fear.

If anything, said one Afghan official,

the negotiations appear to have only

emboldened the Taliban. The official

spoke on the condition of anonymity to

discuss the briefings more frankly.

Hours after the Thursday bombing in

Kabul, Mr. Khalilzad and the top com-

mander in Kabul arrived for a surprise

meeting with the Taliban in Doha. They

went straight into unannounced talks

that lasted into the early morning.

It was unclear what they were negoti-

ating when the special envoy had de-

clared the agreement final “in princi-

ple.” Officials at the time refused to con-

firm it was related to the uptick in vio-

lence.

One Western official said a deal had

been nearly at hand but appeared to

have been jeopardized by showman-

ship. Now it has created an environment

in which the Taliban, as well as a skepti-

cal region that includes Iran and Russia,

will conclude that no process with the

Americans can be trusted, the official

said.

Trump calls off secret meeting with the Taliban

WASHINGTON

Startling announcement

follows bombing that

kills 12 in Afghanistan

BY MICHAEL CROWLEY,
LARA JAKES
AND MUJIB MASHAL

Canceling the talks appears to scuttle the president’s campaign promise to withdraw American troops from the 18-year conflict.

ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The site of a suicide attack in Kabul last week. Mr. Trump said that the Taliban had

admitted to a similar attack that left an American soldier and 11 others dead.

HEDAYATULLAH AMID/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Michael Crowley and Lara Jakes re-

ported from Washington, and Mujib

Mashal from Kabul, Afghanistan.

During the Cold War, the United States
beamed its radio service to Eastern Eu-
ropeans starved for any information
that did not slavishly adhere to the line
of their authoritarian leaders.
In Hungary, after the fall of the Berlin
Wall, it rolled up that service, Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, in 1993, consider-
ing the collapse of Communism to be
mission accomplished.
So it is likely to be taken as something
of an affront to the current government
under Prime Minister Viktor Orban that
the United States may restart the pro-
democracy news agency.
The move by the United States
Agency for Global Media, an independ-
ent federal agency, reflects Hungary’s
drift away from a free and open govern-
ment and is a blow to President Trump’s
outreach to the country’s far-right
prime minister.
The service’s renewal in Hungary still
awaits a greenlight from Congress, but
that may come this month.
“We’ve done our homework, and we
know this has broad backing, and we’re
preparing to move forward,” said the
agency’s chief, John Lansing.
He said that the service’s initial budg-
et could run up to $750,000 and that a bu-
reau would be established in Hungary.
He expects a soft introduction of the
service in May 2020, with a formal start
one year from now.
Radio Free Europe’s mission is to
bring independent news, albeit with its
own pro-Western tinge, to places

“where a free press is banned or not

fully established.”

Its return to Hungary could be per-

ceived as a rebuke of Trump administra-

tion policy toward Mr. Orban.

Since returning to power in 2010, Mr.

Orban has meticulously built what he

calls an “illiberal” state, using his power

to unilaterally overhaul Hungary’s Con-

stitution, change election laws to favor

his party and undermine the independ-

ence of the judiciary.

Today, Mr. Orban’s allies control the

public media and most of the country’s

private news media, creating a central-

ized pro-government echo chamber for

hate speech, ethnic identity politics and

conspiracy theories, harping on anti-Se-

mitic tropes and extremist rhetoric to

bolster his party’s base.

At the same time, Mr. Trump has culti-

vated Mr. Orban as an ally. The two lead-

ers met in May at the White House.

“Viktor Orban has done a tremendous

job in so many different ways,” Mr.

Trump said of Mr. Orban, whose govern-

ment has come under intense criticism

in recent years for its authoritarian turn

and increasingly close relations with the

Kremlin and China.

David Cornstein, the American am-

bassador to Budapest, sought to blunt

the effect of Radio Free Europe’s return

to Hungary.

Mr. Cornstein, a retired jewelry mer-

chant from New York and personal

friend of Mr. Trump, sought assurances

from the agency that its service would

not focus on investigative journalism or

negative stories about the Hungarian

government and that it would not under-

mine his efforts as ambassador, accord-

ing to United States officials.

The officials who described the meet-

ing asked not to be identified because

they were not authorized to speak on the

matter.

The United States International

Broadcasting Act prohibits interference

by American government officials in Ra-

dio Free Europe’s reporting.

Asked for comment, Mr. Cornstein

said: “In general we do not comment on

private discussions. That said, I remain

as committed today as I was when I

made clear during my Senate confirma-

tion hearing, that as ambassador I am

committed to promoting American and

democratic values, including the free-

dom of speech and the freedom of the

press.”

Since Mr. Orban’s return to power,

Hungary has plummeted in the World

Press Freedom Index, an annual rank-

ing of countries by the group Reporters

Without Borders. Allies of the govern-

ment have control of most newspapers,

television stations and radio stations,

and are increasing their online pres-

ence.

At the same time, Mr. Orban has

steadily undermined the workings of

many of the country’s other democratic

institutions.

Elections are held on a playing field

tilted in the government’s favor. Civil so-

ciety organizations are labeled public

enemies and find their work stifled by

legal obstacles. And courts are stacked

with longtime associates of the prime

minister who are careful not to act

against his interests.

Peter Kreko, the director of Political

Capital, a Budapest-based think tank

and consultancy, said Mr. Orban had

modeled Hungary’s centralized media

structure on the example set by a much

larger neighbor to the east, Russia.

Hungary’s pro-government media is

adopting many of the Kremlin stances

found on Sputnik News and RT. They of-

fer a steady doomsday narrative of the

decline of the West as a result of mass

migration, multiculturalism and ultra-

liberalism.

“Orban has already mentioned Rus-

sia several times as a model state,” Mr.

Kreko said. “Orban’s policies in educa-

tion, media and toward the NGOs are

obviously inspired by Putin.”

And as the Kremlin has done, allies of

Mr. Orban are taking the model abroad,

investing in the media in countries such

as Britain, Romania, Slovenia and North

Macedonia.

This year, the House Appropriations

Committee encouraged the restart of

Radio Free Europe’s service in Central

and Eastern Europe.

Bipartisan legislation introduced in

the House in May called on the secre-

tary of state, Mike Pompeo, to bolster ef-

forts in Hungary against corruption and

Russian influence, and to strengthen the

independent news media and civic

groups.

“There is a growing understanding on

both sides of the aisle now that there are

challenges to democracy and the rule of

law in countries like Hungary and Po-

land,” said Dalibor Rohac, a research fel-

low with the American Enterprise Insti-

tute.

On the airwaves in Hungary

BUDAPEST

U.S. radio service poised

to restart as Congress aims

to counter Orban’s grip

BY BENJAMIN NOVAK

The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Prague. Congressional approval
for the service’s return to Hungary may come this month.

ALEXEY VITVITSKY/SPUTNIK VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

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