The United States said Monday it is stopping financial contributions to UNESCO after Palestine was admitted to the organization as a full member. “We were to make a $ 60 million dollar payment to UNESCO in November and we will not be making that payment,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
She said the Palestinian admission “triggers longstanding (US) legislative restrictions which will compel the US to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO.”
The US, Israel’s top ally, in the 1990s banned the financing of any United Nations organization that accepts Palestine as a full member. The United States provides about 22 percent of UNESCO’s annual budget. The vote “is regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” Nuland said.
