U.N. Approves $35.7-Million Budget for Gulf Peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS — As more U.N. observers arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday, the General Assembly’s budget committee unanimously approved a $35.7-million appropriation to finance the United Nations’ truce-monitoring force through October.

According to the official Iraqi News Agency, 73 U.N. observers joined others who arrived last week. About the same number of observers are in Tehran, the Iranian capital.

The U.N. forces are part of the U.N. Iran-Iraq Military Observers Group, known as UNIIMOG. The group is currently made up of 350 unarmed officers from 24 nations, plus hundreds of support personnel. They will have their headquarters in the two capitals and monitor the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War, which officially begins Saturday.

Under a complicated formula by which the five permanent members of the Security Council pay the bulk of the world organization’s peacekeeping expenses, the United States will be assessed 30.6% of the initial sum, or $10.9 million. The poorest of the United Nations’ member states will be assessed much less to support the force, which officials said could be expanded to as many as 1,446 men.

According to a U.N. report, the first six months of the Persian Gulf War peacekeeping operation is expected to cost about $75 million, of which the United States would pay about $23 million. U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar asked the budget committee to approve the $75-million figure, but the committee decided to vote initially for a stopgap measure and then consider further funding when the General Assembly begins its new session Sept. 19.

The committee’s action was expected to receive approval by the General Assembly today.

The initial assessment for the Iran-Iraq peacekeeping group is only the beginning of a whole range of new peacekeeping costs faced by the United Nations. An end to the fighting in Namibia and Angola, involving South African and Cuban troops as well as Angolan rebels, could bring estimated new expenses of $700 million a year, and a similar peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan and the Western Sahara could double that amount. Another major effort would be required to maintain order if Vietnam withdraws from Cambodia.

Meanwhile, a budget committee source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he has been informed by U.S. officials that Washington will soon pay $44 million of $467 million in past due obligations to the world organization and most of $144 million voted by Congress to cover current dues.

One of the chief objections made by Washington in withholding money from the United Nations was that major contributors had too little control over U.N. spending.