Tillerson deviates from Trump's position on Palestinian refugee agency

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson supports a sustainably funded United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which departs from the position of the Donald Trump administration. He made the assertion during a Feb. 14 press conference in Amman with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi.

On the topic of US funding for UNRWA, Tillerson remarked, “[The United States] did release $60 million in order to ensure that teachers’, hospital workers’ salaries would continue to be paid uninterrupted.”

Tillerson made no mention of the publicly stated reason why the United States withheld another $65 million on Jan. 16 that had been committed to the UN agency to help cover its $800 million annual budget. Both Trump and his UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, have conditioned aid to UNRWA on the Palestinian’s “return to negotiations.”

Tillerson correctly noted in Amman that UNRWA is a UN agency, not a Palestinian organization. As such, he stated, “The UNRWA funding is an international commitment. Many countries are donors to UNRWA. And part of, I think, what we would like to see — and I know the foreign minister and I have had many discussions about this as well — is we need to put UNRWA on a more sustainable footing.”