'Reform should drive the budget, not the other way around,' Bolton told reporters a day after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cancelled a planned trip to Asia.
The surprise decision to cancel the trip pointed to a budding diplomatic crisis amid reports that Washington may link approval of the full two-year budget to progress on the reforms.
Bolton claimed credit for Annan's cancellation of his two-week journey to Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Hanoi. He said he advised Annan early Thursday to stay in New York. Annan announced late Thursday he had cancelled the visits.
The trip would have kept Annan away from U.N. headquarters until near Christmas while a fight over U.N. reforms and the budget was underway.
Bolton said the United States will hand over soon a check for 300 million dollars for the U.N. administrative budget, which will stand at 3.89 billion dollars for 2006-2007. The U.S. normally carries 22 per cent of that budget, paid over the course of a year.
But if the U.S. carries out its threat of withholding its annual contribution, the U.N. will be short of money in the first quarter of 2006. It would need up to 500 million dollars while expected receipts would amount to about 180 million dollars.
Discussion on the budget in the U.N. General Assembly had just begun, but was already clouded by perceived U.S. threats that unless some reform programmes are carried out before December 31, the U.S. would withhold its contribution.
Bolton rejected the accusation, saying that he had proposed that the 191-nation assembly adopt a quarterly budget while talks for reforms proceeded. He said if the biennial budget were to be adopted by December 31, efforts to overhaul the 60-year-old U.N. would be stalled for two years.
'What we do not want is to have bean counting business as usual to defeat the reform business,' Bolton said.
The General Assembly is mandated to finish a 2006-2007 administrative budget, as well as talks on establishing a new Human Rights Council and a Peacebuilding Commission, before December 31.
In addition, the assembly said Thursday it had failed to finish a draft convention against international terrorism - another project due for completion by year's end.
World leaders at a U.N. summit in September demanded that those tasks be finished by December. With progress lagging, Annan said he would take part in negotiations aimed at completing the proposals.
U.N. Comptroller Warren Sach said this week that a proposal to partially fund the U.N. in order to postpone the dispute on U.N. reforms would cripple the organization.
'This place does not run on air - it runs on money', Sach said.
The budget comprises all U.N. activity except peacekeeping, international tribunals and specialized U.N. agencies, which are funded separately.
The proposed 3.89 billion-billion-dollar budget included some 73.4 million dollars for U.N. reform, a result of the September summit in New York.
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