The Wall Street Journal - 22.08.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Thursday, August 22, 2019 |A

Afghan police and soldiers had

been killed in fighting since he

took office in September 2014.

Administration officials

have been tight-lipped about

the sticking points that have

held up a U.S.-Taliban agree-

ment, but differences over the

timeline for the American

troop withdrawal—the Tali-

ban’s core demand—appear to

have narrowed.

Whatever the case, how

many U.S. military personnel, if

any, will be in Afghanistan

when Americans go to the polls

on Nov. 3, 2020, is an open

question,these people said.

Also in dispute in the Doha

negotiations is the credibility

of the proposed guarantee by

the Taliban to stamp out, fol-

lowing an American troop

withdrawal, the local affiliate

of Islamic State and any dis-

gruntled Taliban splinter

groups who take up arms

against the government.

Despite concerns that one

result of a peace deal will be

the expansion of Islamic State’s

local branch, Mr. Trump on

Wednesday said at a certain

point, countries like Afghani-

stan and Iraq have to fight

their own battles with Islamic

State, Reuters reported.

That declaration puts the

president at odds with the Pen-

tagon. During the Doha talks,

the U.S. military has been

skeptical about the Taliban’s

assessment of the Islamic State

threat in Afghanistan and the

assurances by Taliban negotia-

tors that the group’s fighters

can handle the expanding

threat it poses in the wake of

an American troop withdrawal,

a U.S. military official said.

—Saeed Shah in Islamabad

and Nancy A. Youssef

in Washington

contributed to this article.

BEIJING—China confirmed

that mainland police have de-

tained an employee of the

British Consulate in Hong

Kong for allegedly violating

Chinese law, in Beijing’s first

official comment on the man’s

case since he disappeared two

weeks ago.

Simon Cheng, a Hong Kong

citizen, had been given the

punishment of 15 days in “ad-

ministrative detention” by po-

lice in the city of Shenzhen, a

Chinese Foreign Ministry

spokesman said Wednesday.

Mr. Cheng had allegedly vi-

olated China’s Public-Security

Administration Punishments

Law, according to the ministry

spokesman, Geng Shuang, who

didn’t specify the alleged

wrongdoing.

The law covers a range of

offenses deemed detrimental

to public order but minor

enough to be punished with

fines or short-term deten-

tion—such as damaging public

property and spreading ru-

mors.

Mr. Cheng, a trade and in-

vestment officer with the Brit-

ish Consulate General in Hong

Kong, had disappeared late on

Aug. 8 at a border check on

his way home from Shenzhen,

according to his girlfriend.

Mr. Geng didn’t say when

Mr. Cheng was first detained

or when he would be released.

It couldn’t be determined

whether Mr. Cheng’s detention

was related to the continuing

antigovernment protests in

Hong Kong against Beijing’s

increasing encroachment on

the partly autonomous city.

“This employee is a Hong

Kong citizen, he isn’t a British

citizen,” Mr. Geng said of Mr.

Cheng. “He is a Chinese per-

son, in other words. So this is

completely an internal matter

for China.”

BYCHUNHANWONG

China Says

It Holds

Consulate

Employee

New details about the U.S.

sanctions-busting case against

Huawei Technologies Co.

emerged in court filings in Can-

ada, including about the Chi-

nese company’s alleged deal-

ings in Iran, Syria and Sudan.

The filings also detailed dis-

cussions the telecommunica-

tions equipment maker had

with Citigroup Inc. and BNP

Paribas about its Iran business.

The hundreds of pages of

court documents released in

Vancouver on Tuesday shed

new light on the U.S. case

against Huawei and its finance

chief, Meng Wanzhou, who is

fighting extradition after being

arrested in Canada in Decem-

ber at the behest of the U.S.

In the latest filings, U.S. au-

thorities more closely tie Hua-

wei to a Hong Kong company

known as Skycom Tech Co.,

which did business in Iran and

is at the heart of the U.S. case

against Huawei. The U.S. has

alleged that Skycom, which

Huawei sold, was under Hua-

wei’s control for much longer

than the company disclosed to

its banks.

The entity that bought Sky-

com, a Mauritius-registered

company called Canicula Hold-

ings Ltd., was operated by Hua-

wei as “an unofficial subsidiary

Huawei financial chief Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in May.

LINDSEY WASSON/REUTERS

What negotiating instruc-

tions Mr. Khalilzad received

during the gathering at Mr.

Trump’s golf club in New Jer-

sey or with senior administra-

tion officials before departing

Washington couldn’t be deter-

mined, nor could the details of

the hurdles that have delayed

a full agreement since an ac-

cord in principle was reached

in January.

Propelling the negotiations

forward is next year’s U.S. presi-

dential election and Mr. Trump’s

bid for another four-year term

in office. His administration has

set Sept. 1 as a deadline for an

announcement on the troop

withdrawal and the Taliban se-

curity guarantees, as well as a

road map for completing a com-

prehensive peace agreement to

end the nearly 18-year war.

The president has been a

scathing critic of the war and

promised while campaigning

for president in 2016 that he

would extricate America from

such conflicts.

Mr. Trump’s disgust with

the Afghan war was again on

display on Tuesday.

In comments to reporters

shortly before the State De-

partment announced Mr. Khal-

ilzad’s return to Doha, he de-

scribed the duration of U.S.

involvement in Afghanistan as

ridiculous and derided the

current role of the roughly

14,500 American military per-

sonnel deployed here as one of

“almost of a police force.”

Two more American military

personnel were killed in action

on Wednesday, the U.S.-led

NATO mission said.

The casualties brought to

14 the number of U.S. military

personnel killed in action so

far this year in Afghanistan. In

January, President Ashraf

Ghani said more than 45,

WORLD NEWS

KABUL—U.S.-Taliban nego-

tiations to end America’s lon-

gest military engagement

overseas entered a crucial

stage on Wednesday, as Wash-

ington’s special envoy arrived

in the Gulf state of Qatar for

talks both sides hope will lead

quickly to a deal.

The negotiations between

Taliban officials and a U.S. ne-

gotiating team led by the en-

voy, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the

withdrawal of U.S. and other

foreign forces from Afghani-

stan and a Taliban commit-

ment not to support interna-

tional terrorism were expected

to resume on Thursday.

An agreement on these is-

sues, with provisions to slow

the drawdown of foreign

forces if the Taliban fail to

comply with their part of the

deal, would set the stage for

separate negotiations among

the insurgents, Afghan govern-

ment officials and other prom-

inent Afghan political figures

on a cease-fire and a power-

sharing government in Kabul.

Those talks, tentatively set for

Oslo, are expected to begin

within weeks.

“First stop Doha where we

will try and close on remain-

ing issues. We’re ready. Let’s

see if the Taliban are as well,”

Mr. Khalilzad tweeted as he

headed to Qatar’s capital late

Tuesday. Following his talks in

Doha, the Afghan-born diplo-

mat is scheduled to travel to

Kabul to brief Afghan govern-

ment officials.

Anticipation of a U.S.-Tali-

ban deal within days is high

following President Trump’s

meeting on Friday with Mr.

Khalilzad, U.S. cabinet mem-

bers and senior American offi-

cials, during which the presi-

dent was briefed on progress

in the talks, which he later de-

scribed as “very good.”

BYCRAIGNELSON

Afghan Talks Enter Crucial Stage

U.S. special envoy

arrives in Qatar,

aiming to secure deal

for peace with Taliban

The head of Kabul’s Boyazara Girls High School and a teacher on Tuesday showed books burned in an alleged Taliban attack.

JAWAD JALALI/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

in Syria,” according to the fil-

ings. In addition, Huawei lent

Canicula €13.8 million ($15.

million) to fund the acquisition

in a series of transactions be-

ginning in 2009, according to

the documents.

The documents also de-

scribed a Huawei unit in Sudan,

saying the company referred to

its business in the African

country by the code name “A5.”

A Huawei spokesman de-

clined to comment on a con-

tinuing legal case.

The U.S. has accused Ms.

Meng and Huawei of bank

fraud and violating sanctions

on Iran. Huawei and Ms. Meng

have denied all charges. Her

lawyers are arguing that U.S.

authorities committed an abuse

of process by attempting to use

her case as a bargaining chip in

trade negotiations with China.

The U.S. indictment of Ms.

Meng and Huawei, issued in

January, described four un-

named financial institutions as

being misled by Huawei about

its business in Iran. The Wall

Street Journal has reported

that HSBC and Standard Char-

tered PLC were among the in-

stitutions told by Huawei that

it wasn’t doing business in Iran

through Skycom.

The documents released

Tuesday allege that Citigroup

and BNP also had talks with

Huawei about its Iran business

following the publication of

Reuters articles in 2012 and

2013 alleging that Huawei sold

U.S.-made computer equipment

in Iran via Skycom in violation

of U.S. sanctions.

Huawei representatives, in-

cluding the company’s trea-

surer and Ms. Meng, told Citi-

group that the company was in

compliance with all sanctions,

according to a 2017 email de-

scribed in the filings. The fil-

ings also describe a 2014 BNP

document in which Huawei de-

scribed Skycom as “one of the

business partners of Huawei.”

HSBC and Standard Char-

tered cut business ties with

Huawei, deeming it too risky to

work with the company, the

Journal reported in December.

A spokesman for Citigroup

declined to comment. A Stan-

dard Chartered spokeswoman

and a BNP spokeswoman de-

clined to comment. An HSBC

spokesman didn’t respond to a

request for comment.

Ms. Meng, the daughter of

the billionaire founder of Hua-

wei, Ren Zhengfei, is fighting

her extradition to the U.S., ar-

guing that she was unlawfully

detained, searched and interro-

gated at the Vancouver airport

in December “under a ruse”

carried out by Canadian and

American authorities, accord-

ing to separate documents dis-

closed on Tuesday.

The case is one of several

flashpoints between the U.S.

and Huawei, the world’s largest

maker of telecommunications

equipment and the No. 2

manufacturer of smartphones.

The Trump administration has

blacklisted the company as a

national security threat,

blocking companies from sell-

ing it U.S. technology without a

license.

BYDANSTRUMPF

Huawei Sanctions Case

Details Bank Discussions

U.S. authorities

have explored the

Chinese company’s

connections to Iran.

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