Trusteeship Council formally suspends operation: Palau admitted to UN.

The admission to the UN of Palau--the last of the Trust Territories--was an "historic moment", Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said on 15 December at a flag-rising ceremony to mark the event.

"Now, the task for which the Trusteeship Council had been created was fulfilled, bringing an end to a chapter in United Nations history", he stated.

Palau's President Kuniwo Nakamura said that for almost 50 years his country had been "proud to have the flags of the United States and the United Nations flying with its own", but this year those two flags had been "formally lowered as Palau became independent".

Earlier that day, the General Assembly, by unanimously adopting resolution 49/63, admitted the Republic of Palau to the UN as its 185th Member State.

The Security Council on 29 November, after recommending that action in its resolution 963 (1994), had also stated that Palau's admission marked the "culmination of an effort sustained over decades to bring self-determination to the Trust Territories in different corners of the world".

On 10 November, the Security Council had terminated the Trusteeship Agreement for Palau, by unanimously adopting resolution 956 (1994), and also determined that the "objectives of the Trusteeship Agreement have...