White House meeting with President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised congressional hackles by calling the United States a "deadbeat" donor to the world body.

Ban’s criticism Wednesday of the U.N.’s single biggest backer irked some members of the House Foreign Relations Committee. They were generally supportive of his leadership but voiced concern about U.N. efforts in areas from Sudan to Somalia. Interviewed after the session, Ban said he had wanted to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. agrees to pay 22 percent of the U.N.’s $4.86 billion operating budget, but is perennially late with its dues — and now is about $1 billion behind on its payments. That figure is "soon to be $1.6 billion," Ban emphasized. Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said: "The U.S. is the largest contributor to the United Nations and while we are behind in some of our payments, those are not the words we would have chosen to encourage Congress to address this problem." Experts didn’t rule out that tensions could be ended with US leaving the UN.
UN member countries have three financial duties to pay membership fee, to fund peacekeeping operations and to support the international tribunals. According to the UN financial rules, the membership fees should be paid until January 31, but only 43 countries, including Azerbaijan paid the membership fees so far.
Baku–APA