SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea criticised on Tuesday the U.S. plan to rejoin the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as a “sinister” move to use an international organisation for the purpose of “realizing the strategy for hegemony”.
The Paris-based U.N. agency announced this month the United States intended to rejoin in July, calling it an “act of confidence in UNESCO and in multilateralism”.
The move is expected to be approved by a majority of its 193 member states. The decision is in part aimed at countering China’s growing sway at the agency where it is one of the largest donors, the Wall Street Journal reported this month.
“Clear is the sinister intention of the U.S. hastening the reentry into the organization … The U.S. has an inglorious background of having withdrawn not only from UNESCO but also from WHO, the UN Human Rights Council and other international organizations,” a statement released by North Korea’s permanent mission to UNESCO said.
U.S. President Joe Biden has reversed his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO).
“It is to take advantage of the international organization as a theatre for confrontation between camps and a window for realizing the strategy for hegemony, not for international cooperation and promotion,” added the statement carried by the North’s KCNA news agency.
The United States initially joined UNESCO at its founding in 1945 but withdrew in 1984 in protest against alleged financial mismanagement and perceived anti-U.S. bias before returning in 2003.
The U.S. withdrew again in 2018 under Trump over accusations of anti-Israel bias and mismanagement.
North Korea has been a member state since 1974.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, editing by Ed Osmond)
