United Nations -- After more than a year of negotiations the 189 UN member states have approved the first reapportionment of financial responsibility for the world organization in more than 25 years.

"This is a tremendous achievement for the United Nations," U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said December 22 several hours after the negotiations ended. "For the first time since the original 1973 peacekeeping structure was put into place, there was a review of it."

"Changing it was not easy," the U.S. Ambassador to the UN said. "Everybody had to make concessions; everybody had to make adjustments. But in the end we got a deal."

What "drove the process was that we were facing defeat," Holbrooke said. "This would have been the first time in UN history that we didn't have a budget on time and everyone had agreed for months reform was necessary. And everyone in the end cooperated."

Pressed by the United States and the so-called Helms-Biden legislation, the UN General Assembly voted December 23 to accept a new scale of assessments that will reduce the U.S. share of the regular budget to 22 percent and peacekeeping to 27 percent.

While many nations played key roles in the negotiations and several volunteered to pay more than economic tables indicted should be their share or gave up "discounts," U.S. businessman Ted Turner helped close the agreement when he offered to make a one-time payment of $34 million to make up the regular budget shortfall that results when the U.S. portion is reduced to 22 percent in the 2001 UN budget. Countries had said that they had already budgeted their 2001 UN assessments and could not pick up the difference in 2001.

Turner, the founder of the CNN television network, stepped in six weeks ago after being briefed by Holbrooke. That set off what the U.S. Ambassador to the UN called a "brutal discussion on how to distribute the money" and spurred long-running talks on "about 30 or 40 different issues...some of mind-boggling technicality or mind-numbing complexity" over such issues as the base for economic data, rates for "newly-rich" developing countries, and responsibilities of the UN Security Council's five permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States).

Holbrooke lauded Turner for "the most sophisticated use of philanthropic funds for a larger purpose than I can imagine."

"Ted Turner's offer provided us with the flexibility that he had intended it to, it was...an extraordinary demonstration of how to use philanthropic money for leveraging effect," Holbrooke said.

"This was not simply the case of a rich person giving money to build a building, it was money to change a situation," he said.

(Since the United Nations cannot accept money from private citizens to pay UN membership dues, Turner will have to make the payment to the United States which will then write a check to the UN. Holbrooke said that the Turner offer "is completely consistent with U.S. law and U.N. regulations" and the details have been worked out.)

Holbrooke also praised China and Russia for agreeing to larger percentages of the costs and singled out other countries such as Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, South Korea, Israel, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, and Slovenia for their roles in the reform process.

In addition to the United States, Japan will have a reduction in dues assessment from 19 percent to 18 percent of the budget.

"China is going to go from 0.995 of one percent in the regular budget to 1.55 percent of the regular budget and in peacekeeping they will go up about 1.94 percent," up 55 percent in the regular budget and over 60 percent on peacekeeping, Holbrooke explained. "This is a tremendous achievement."

Russia, he pointed out, "voluntarily took a much higher amount of money as their responsibility in both peacekeeping and the regular budget than the economic statistics for their country dictated."

One problem remains for the United States. The Helms-Biden legislation requires that the U.S. portion of peacekeeping bills be reduced to 25 percent for the arrears payment to be released. However, the agreement reached in the General Assembly reduced the U.S. share to 27 percent.

Nevertheless, both Holbrooke and Biden are optimistic that the problem can be worked out.

"It's easier to deal with a two percent gap than a six percent gap, which is the current gap and which has led to the arrears problem," Holbrooke said.

Holbrooke said he has already discussed the issue with Colin Powell, President-elect George W. Bush's nominee for Secretary of State, but added that the incoming Bush Administration has not indicated how it could be handled.

Senator Joseph Biden, who visited the UN December 12, indicated that if there was serious reform of the assessments, there might be a possibility for the Senate to allow the release the $582 million arrears payment which was slated for this year if the assessments were changed.

"I speak only for myself now: I'm of the view that if there is movement in the direction of the United States position on regular assessments, that there would be an opportunity to be flexible on the second assessment for peacekeeping," Biden told journalists.

"At this moment the vast majority of my colleagues would believe they have to be met exactly as stated," Biden continued. "What I am suggesting is that if they are met in ... a significant way, that I for one, having been a legislator there for 28 years, believe I might be able to carry the case that we should move forward anyway. Beyond that I would not want to speculate."

Reforming the financial and budget structure of the United Nations "in order to make it better" has been "the highest sustained" and "central guiding priority" of the U.S. delegation for the past 17 months, Holbrooke has said. Backed by the so-called Helms-Biden legislation which links the payment of almost $1 million in U.S. arrears to the reduction of U.S. dues and peacekeeping costs and other management reforms, U.S. diplomats had been lobbying the other 188 U.N. members to make long needed changes that would more accurately reflect the current international economic situation and deal with the new international agenda set out by the Millennium Summit in September.

"The financial restructuring of both the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget is a very, very important issue for the United States, for the United Nations, for its members states, for the world community," Holbrooke stressed repeatedly during negotiations over the past several months.