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UN to Reach Deal on Budget, Turner Helps US Pay
The U.N. Administration and Budget Committee is scheduled to resume its session Friday evening to discuss the annual budget and it is likely to adopt a resolution to cut American dues to the United Nations, U.N. officials said here.
The meeting comes after the United Nations reached a deal Friday to cut American dues to the world body after media magnate Ted Turner offered 34 million U.S. dollars to help Washington break the political impasse.
The committee, known as the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, will resume its closed-door session at 5:30 p.m. EST before the convocation of an open session to take action on the draft resolution.
If the resolution is adopted, the General Assembly will hold a plenary session Friday night to approve the resolution, a U.N. spokesman said.
The 189-member General Assembly is expected to approve the deal on its 1 billion dollars of annual administrative budget and 3 billion dollars of peacekeeping budget after final details are completed following marathon overnight talks.
Turner, founder of Cable News Network (CNN) television and Time Warner Inc., will be paying 34 million dollars to the U.S. State Department so the Clinton administration could break its political deadlock with the U.S. Congress and the 188 other countries at the United Nations.
Due to the U.S. reluctance to pay its back dues in full, in time and without any conditions, the United Nations has been long plunged into the financial crisis.
At present, the United States owes 1.32 billion dollars to the United Nations. Congress had refused to pay most of the debt Washington owes to the United Nations until the rate of U.S. payments cut.
The resolution now before the Fifth Committee is expected to contain a non-binding provision for Washington to clean up its arrears over the next three years.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed that an agreement on dues for the coming year appeared imminent at the talks.
"As far as our financial regulations go, we can accept payments of annual dues from governments, and if Turner gives the money to the U.S., and the U.S. gives it to us, then that's consistent with our rules," he said.
The United Nations, the largest intergovernmental organization in the world, fully relies on the dues from its member states to finance its operations, but it never accepts donations or contributions from private persons.
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