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The White House National Security Advisor, John Bolton, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday after a two-day visit to Moscow, confirming that the United States would withdraw from a landmark agreement on Arms control with Russia do that.
While sitting with Bolton in the Kremlin, Putin proposed that he and President Donald Trump meet when the two leaders meet in Paris next month for the 100th anniversary of the First World War armistice. Bolton accepted the proposal and later, at a press conference, he told the media that the White House would work to organize the meeting.
Bolton's visit to Russia was dominated by Trump's decision to remove the United States from the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, an arms control agreement meant to help end the cold war. Signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the agreement banned Russia and the United States from developing and deploying short and medium-range missiles launched from the ground.
Trump said he was retreating because of treaty violations by Russia and that he was releasing the United States from opposing nuclear accumulation from China. The idea of withdrawal provoked strong criticism from arms control advocates and some members of his own party who warned him that this might provoke a new arms race.
On Tuesday, Bolton said that the United States intended to proceed with the withdrawal, calling the treaty "obsolete" because it was binding on the United States, while other nuclear powers, including China, amassed freely missiles prohibited by the treaty.
"It was a bilateral treaty dealing with Cold War missiles in a world of multipolar ballistic missiles," Bolton said.
The United States accuses Russia of violating the treaty for several years by developing a new cruise missile. Russia denied this and Bolton said that the Kremlin's refusal to admit this allegation meant that the treaty was untenable.
"How do you ask the Russians to comply with something that they do not think they are violating?" said Bolton, noting that the US has vainly demanded that the Russians comply with the Obama administration's demands. He added that the United States would trigger the six-month withdrawal mechanism of the treaty "in due course".
Russia opposes the exit of the United States, describing it as dangerous. At their meeting, Putin reprimanded Bolton.
"On the American seal, there is an eagle holding arrows in one hand and an olive branch in another," Putin said. "So, a question: did the eagle eat all the olives and leave only arrows?"
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
"I hope I'll have answers to give you," Bolton replied, laughing. "But I did not bring any more olives."
Some European countries as well as senior Republican politicians have asked the White House to reconsider the withdrawal. Some also expressed hope that the White House is trying to expand the INF treaty to other nuclear powers, but Bolton suggested it was unlikely that previous efforts had failed.
Despite the controversy over the treaty, Bolton's meeting with Russia appeared to be aimed at repairing some of the barriers, as the country followed Putin's and Trump's directives following their summit in Helsinki earlier this year.
Bolton said the United States and Russia will resume dialogue on counter-narcotics and human trafficking, as well as high-level discussions on the fight against terrorism.
However, in the United States, Bolton was the victim of a new controversy, claiming that Russia's interference in the 2016 election had no impact on its results.
"The fact was that the result would have been exactly the same, according to all the evidence we have," Bolton said at the press conference. "And if there was any evidence to the contrary, we would have heard it already."
President Trump has long insisted that Russia's intervention had no effect, but Bolton's statement goes beyond what the US intelligence community has already said and contradicts what some former senior officials Americans have suggested.
Asked about the evidence he had, Bolton replied that he only knew what had been leaked in the indictments of Russian agents and other public sources. "There is no possibility that the outcome of the election has been changed," he said. "If new information comes up, we will have to take it into account."
US intelligence agencies have determined that Russia intervened in the 2016 elections by trying to tip the balance in favor of Trump against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. They did not publicly assess whether the Russian effort had changed the outcome.
Some former senior US intelligence officials, however, said they believed Russian electoral interference had had an impact. Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper told PBS in May that "for me, this goes beyond the logic and credulity of not affecting the elections and I am convinced that they have really reversed them".
The FBI claiming that the Russians were aiming for the mid-term US elections again in November, Bolton said he hoped there would be no interference. Bolton said that he had told the Russians that their previous efforts had destroyed the ability of the United States and Russia to work together while producing nothing in return for Russia.
"I think it's a lesson: do not play with the US elections," he said.
