Washington: The United States said on Monday it had stopped funding UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters the United States had no choice but to halt funding because of US laws passed in the 1990s, saying Washington would not make a planned $60 million transfer that was due in November.
"The United States ... remains strongly committed to robust, multilateral engagement across the U.N. system. However, Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers long-standing legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO," Nuland said.
Nuland also said the vote Monday by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member was "regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
The United States provides 22 per cent of the funding of the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
That agency decided on Monday to give the Palestinians full membership, a vote that will boost their bid at the United Nations for recognition as a state.
UNESCO is the first UN agency the Palestinians have joined as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23.
Two-decade process
The United States and its ally Israel oppose the Palestinian diplomatic foray in the U.N. system, describing it as an attempt to bypass the two-decade old peace process. Washington says only a resumption of peace talks ending in a treaty with Israel can bring about the Palestinian goal of statehood.
Earlier Monday, Republican US lawmakers demanded the funding cutoff, and the White House as well as other officials across the US political spectrum criticized UNESCO's action.
"I expect the administration to enforce existing law and stop contributions to UNESCO and any other UN agency that enables the Palestinians to short-cut the peace process," said Representative Kay Granger, the Republican chairwoman of the House committee in charge of foreign aid.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said the UNESCO move was "no substitute for negotiations, but it is deeply damaging to UNESCO."
The laws passed in the 1990s prohibit US funding to any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the "internationally recognized attributes" of statehood.
The language was intended to pre-emptively block normalization of Palestinian relations and activities in the international community, said Lara Friedman, policy director at Americans for Peace Now, an American Jewish group.
The American Jewish group J Street called on Congress to amend US law to preserve American contributions to UNESCO, saying without US support, the group's work in development and expanding educational opportunities around the globe would be at risk.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US lawmakers earlier this month that the US government should have the flexibility to decide whether to cut off money for such agencies if they take in the Palestinians.
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