Palestine's admission to UNESCO triggers mixed reactions

In a historic vote by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was granted a full membership to the UN body on Monday, and this move has triggered mixed reactions from across the world, with Israel's firm supporter the U.S. voicing its objection to it and cutting off its financial contributions to the UN organ. Founded in the French capital of Paris in 1946, the 194-member UNESCO is the first UN body to admit the PNA as a full member. At the UN branch's general conference in Paris, the PNA gained 107 votes supporting its membership bid in UNESCO, with only 14 countries voting against and another 52 countries abstained. As a close ally of Israel, the U.S. has described the Palestinian admission to the UN body as "premature" and claimed such move will undermine the Middle East peace process, which has been suspended in Oct. 2010, when Israel decided not to renew a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank, causing Palestine to withdraw from the talks. "Today's vote at UNESCO to admit the Palestinian Authority as a member is premature and undermines the international community's shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East," said the White House spokesman Jay Carney. To show its anger over the UNESCO's move, the U.S. has also decided on Monday to halt making financial contributions to the UN body. "We were to have made a 60-million-dollar payment to UNESCO in November and we will not be making that payment," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at the daily news briefing.