DHAKA: The US government is working hard to get Congress to restore its Unesco funding, Washington’s ambassador to the UN cultural arm said on Saturday, after its voting rights were suspended over failure to pay up.

Unesco’s granting the Palestinians membership two years ago led to the United States stopping its dues and, on Friday, the organisation suspended US voting rights as well as Israel`s.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have made grim assessments of the lack of progress in peace talks, which the United States helped revive last July after a three-year gap, and the Unesco funding furore has not helped.

US ambassador to Unesco David Killion told delegates at Unesco’s biennial general conference in Paris, after the suspension was announced officially, that Washington was ‘working tirelessly’ to restore funding.

BDST: 1942 HRS, NOV 09, 2013
RoR/RIS