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Unesco Chief Calls on US to Find Way to Continue Funding
November 02, 2011

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Paris. Unesco’s Director General Irina Bokova called on the United States on Wednesday to find a way to continue funding the UN cultural agency after Washington stopped its financing for admitting the Palestinians.

“I call on the US administration, Congress and the American people to find a way forward and continue support for Unesco in these turbulent times,” Bokova said in a statement in which she detailed the agency’s work.

“In this time of economic crisis and social transformation, I believe that Unesco’s vital work to promote global stability and democratic values is in America’s core interests,” Bokova said.

Washington canceled $60 million in Unesco funding soon after the organization admitted the Palestinians in a vote at its general conference in Paris on Monday, despite fierce opposition from the United States and Israel.

Laws dating from the 1990s require the US, Israel’s staunchest ally, to withdraw funding from any UN agency that admits Palestine as a full member before a peace deal is reached with Israel.

US funding accounted for nearly a quarter of the organization’s annual budget.

Bokova noted that US funding helped Unesco promote free media in Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt as well as to educate Afghan police.

She also pointed out that Unesco is the only UN agency with a mandate to promote Holocaust education worldwide.

“Using funding provided by the United States and Israel, Unesco is developing curricula to ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten,” she said.

Both Washington and Israel had lobbied the organization to delay the vote, with the Jewish state warning that the membership bid was unilateral and would jeopardise the chances of reviving negotiations.

Israel has since accelerated Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land and decided to withhold tax revenues it has collected on behalf of the Palestinians.

Agence France-Presse