GENEVA // The Palestinians' top envoy at the UN in Geneva said yesterday he believed that joining Unesco would "open the door" to joining 16 other UN agencies within weeks.
Ibrahim Khraishi said Palestinian diplomats were planning to capitalise on Monday's landslide vote to allow the Palestinians into the UN agency for culture, education and science by preparing papers to join the other UN agencies and a variety of international organisations.
"Now we are studying when we are going to move for full membership on the other UN agencies," Mr Khraishi said. "It's our target for the international organisations and the UN agencies."
"We are working on it, one by one," he said. "Because it's now precedent that we are a full member in one of the biggest and one of the most important UN agencies, Unesco. So it will open the door for us now to go further in our efforts to join other UN agencies."
The Obama administration cut off funding to Unesco after Monday's vote, and US officials warned of a "cascade" effect at other UN bodies that might follow Unesco's lead.
The Palestinians have triggered a long-standing congressional ban on US funding to UN bodies that recognise Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached.
Jordan's parliament criticised the US for cutting the funding."We condemn the US decision, which was taken to punish Unesco for the member states' democratic and just voting to grant Palestine what it deserves," the lower house of parliament said in a statement carried by Jordan's official Petra news agency. "Washington's move is strange because the United States tries to convince the world that it is [a] protector of democracy and freedom."
The UN agency campaign comes as Palestinian officials are seeking full membership in the UN, but that effort is still under examination and the US has pledged a veto unless there is a peace deal with Israel.
Becoming a Unesco member could give the Palestinians an advantage in joining the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation, whose rules say membership is "equally open" to those already a member of other UN specialised agencies.
It is not clear whether that means membership is automatic, and a Geneva-based spokeswoman for the organisation, Samar Shamoon, declined to comment yesterday.
* Associated Press, with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
