The United States will cut funding for the United Nations Human Rights Council and may cut funding to other U.N. agencies too, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters on Thursday, following a five-hour meeting in Geneva with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev.
"We are going to defund the Human Rights Council," Bolton said, and warned that other U.N. agencies could also be up for cuts in U.S. funding.
Bolton rejected statements by some U.N. officials that the council gets its funding through the regular U.N. budget, meaning that its operating expenses cannot be specifically targeted.
The United States pays about 22% of the U.N. budget as part of what's known as an "assessment" based on economic weight and other factors.
"We'll calculate 22% of the Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner's budget, and our remittances to the U.N. for this budget year will be less 22% of those costs – and we'll say specifically that's what we're doing," Bolton said. "We expect that impact to occur on the Human Rights Council."
In Israel, Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan welcomed the decision.
"The U.N.'s human rights bodies have undermined their founding values by becoming hotbeds of anti-Israel extremism, hate and boycott campaigns," he said in a statement.
"If Bolton's announcement spurs the U.N. to start investing in exposing the world's worst violators of human rights, rather than in delegitimizing the Middle East's one true democracy, millions around the world will benefit."
In June, the U.S. announced its decision to leave the council, condemning the "hypocrisy" of its members and its "unrelenting bias" against Israel.
At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. decision, saying, "For years, the UNHRC has proved to be a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights."
After Bolton and Patrushev met, they chose to forgo a joint statement due to disagreements over alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Bolton said the Russians would face no new U.S. sanctions if they stop such interference.
Their meeting marked the first top-level meeting in what could become a series between the countries' national security teams and was what Bolton called the only "concrete" result from President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's summit in Helsinki last month. Such meetings aim toward "opening up channels" and "break through some of the difficulties we've had."
Bolton told reporters after the meeting: "I made it clear that we wouldn't tolerate meddling in 2018, and we were prepared to take necessary steps to prevent it from happening."
Asked if there would be consequences if the Russians did so, Bolton demurred, saying the "focus" was "to make sure that's no repetition of 2016."
But he appeared to offer a bit of an olive branch.
"There won't be any new sanctions if there's no further interference," he said.
But he added, "How we resolve the interference in the past remains to be seen. People who are accused of having violated the sanctions could be indicted." He was alluding to a possible follow-up of the U.S. indictments of 12 Russian officials as part of an investigation by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller.
In remarks carried by Russian news agencies, Patrushev said after the meeting that he and Bolton did not agree on a joint statement because the U.S. wanted to mention the alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
"The Americans wanted to mention what they see as our meddling in their elections, and we deny that," he said.
He said the meeting was constructive and that Russia would look at the U.S. proposals made during the meeting and would expect the U.S. to consider Russian initiatives.
Patrushev said he invited Bolton to have the next meeting in Russia, but no specific time was set. He added that they had also agreed to resume contacts between their Defense and Foreign ministries.
Bolton said he and Patrushev also discussed nuclear nonproliferation, Iran, North Korea, arms control, and Middle East issues including Syria and Afghanistan.
He said he had expressed the U.S. "priority of getting all Iranian forces out of Syria," and reiterated that Putin had told himn in a recent meeting that the Russians too "would like to see the Iranians go home as well [but] we [the Russians] are just not sure we alone can accomplish it."
Bolton said he and Patrushev had discussed "a number of ideas" about how to do that, without specifying.
"We're not going to solve Syria here," he said.
Iran and Russia are two leading backers of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Bolton is a fervent critic of Iran's leadership, saying it supports terrorism. He has defended the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
