States urge U.S. to stay

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 11

States urge U.S. to stay

NZPA-Reuter Paris U.N.E.S.C.O. member countries yesterday appealed to the United States to reverse its decision to withdraw from the organisation at the end of this year. Members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s executive board called on the United States to reconsider what one speaker called its “notice of divorce” served on the organisation last December. Diplomats said efforts by other Western countries to start reforming U.N.E.S.C.O. were making progress and the two-week board meeting was expected to set up a working group on the subject at the suggestion of Britain and France. But some speakers said they believed there was little chance of persuading the Reagan Administration to reverse its decision, which will take effect at the end of this year and deprive U.N.E.S.C.O. of one quarter of its budget. Ivo Margan, a Yugoslav member of the board, said his country deeply regretted the American decision. Mr Margan said he wa-.-; trying to find a meeting of minds on the subject, but was not succeeding. He appealed to the United States to postpone its walk-out until the next general conference of U.N.E.5.C.0., due at the end of 1985. Mr Margan suggested that the board set up a task force to consider structural reforms in the way U.N.E.S.C.O. is run. A French board member, Jacqueline Baudrier, said her Government wanted to keep the United States inside the organisation, which she said had been the target of “a press campaign which many of us deplore.”