US charges Chinese National with Providing Weapons Materials to Iran

The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating US sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating US sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
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US charges Chinese National with Providing Weapons Materials to Iran

The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating US sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles. (Reuters)
The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating US sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles. (Reuters)

The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating US sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Tuesday.

Xiangjiang Qiao works at Sinotech Dalian Carbon and Graphite Manufacturing Corporation, a China-based company which the US Treasury Department placed on a sanctions list in 2014 for helping Iran buy parts to produce ballistic missiles.

Sanctions bar companies from using the US financial system.

Qiao between 2019 and 2022 helped supply Iran with isostatic graphite, an ultra-fine grain used to make rocket nozzles, and set up a bank account in the name of a front company to receive $15,000 in transfers from a US bank in connection with the transactions, prosecutors said.

Qiao, 39, is in China and has not been arrested, prosecutors said. He faces charges including sanctions evasion, bank fraud and money laundering.



Kremlin Foreign Policy Aide Says Several Countries Have Already Offered to Host Putin-Trump Talks

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump talk during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump talk during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
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Kremlin Foreign Policy Aide Says Several Countries Have Already Offered to Host Putin-Trump Talks

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump talk during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump talk during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that several countries had already offered to host talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump, though he declined to say which.

Trump has said he wants to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, though he has yet to set out publicly how he plans to do so, according to Reuters.

Putin said on Thursday that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with Trump and had no conditions for starting talks with the Ukrainian authorities.

But Putin said any talks should take as their starting point a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the early weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented.

Many Ukrainian politicians regard that draft deal as akin to a capitulation which would have neutered Ukraine's military and political ambitions and say they do not believe Putin is ready to strike a deal that would be acceptable for Kyiv too.