UN Demands US Payment of Back DuesUN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the United States risks eroding its standing in the 189- member United Nations if it does not pay 582 million US dollars in back dues before the convocation of the annual General Assembly session in September.Annan conveyed this message in a recent phone conversation with Representative Henry Hyde, who heads the House International Relations Committee, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told a press conference here Wednesday. "The secretary-general told Hyde that if (US) President George W. Bush comes to the General Assembly at its plenary in September, it would be good if the US arrears payment had come in by then," Eckhard said . As part of a deal last December to lower its share of the UN financial assessment, the United States agreed to pay part of its debt to the world body, but US Congress has not yet passed legislation authorizing the release of the money. Annan, during the conversation, warned that other UN members "find it difficult to understand why, seven months after agreement was reached ...no check has been put in the mail," he said. "He said recently that for a country in the US's position, this failure undermines its leadership and its effectiveness in the UN" The Bush administration has angered many countries by rejecting a 1997 UN pact to fight global warming, expressing its unwillingness to join in other international agreements. On the same day in May this year, the United States was voted off a UN human rights commission and an anti-drug body. |
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