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PLO Steps Up Bid for World Recognition : Seeks to Join UNESCO, Other Organizations in United Nations

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From Reuters

The Palestine Liberation Organization, stepping up its campaign for international recognition of Palestine as a state, applied to join UNESCO today and said it will ask to join two other U.N. bodies.

The request follows the PLO’s controversial bid to join the World Health Organization, which sparked U.S. threats to cut off its substantial contributions if the PLO succeeds in joining.

Omar Massalha, PLO observer at the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said Arab states were studying ways of compensating for the U.S. threat.

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He said the PLO also plans to apply for membership in the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome and the International Labor Organization in Geneva.

“We will try to join FAO in September and the ILO sometime soon,” Massalha said.

An application request for the notional state of Palestine was entered on the UNESCO agenda by seven sympathetic Muslim nations after they were lobbied by the PLO. Yasser Arafat, PLO chairman, has also sent a letter to Director General Federico Mayor formally requesting admission, Massalha said.

UNESCO observers said the application could count on Third World support and thus stands a fair chance of succeeding. The PLO’s full membership could, however, jeopardize Mayor’s attempts to reform the agency.

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The United States and Britain quit the organization in 1984 and 1985 respectively, complaining of mismanagement and misuse of funds. Since then, the new director general has been working hard to get the two countries to rejoin because they once paid nearly a third of UNESCO’s funding.

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