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CONFIDENTIAL
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adēji
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(89)!
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4.
The question of the UNHCR initiative is somewhat more difficult. We have not yet heard from the Home Office what response we propose to make to the appeal but I understand that it will be most unlikely that the Home Secretary will commit himself on the question of numbers. Doubtless he will take the Secretary of State's minute FCS/75/20 of 13 May into account in his approach to individual cases. (But the Home Office's approach may well be to accept those with UK connections first and to consider others only when they know how many have such connections and how many have been taken in by other countries.) Secondly, it is obvious from the summary record of the EEC Groupe d'Asie in Dublin on 9 May that most EEC countries are unwilling to commit themselves to numbers in their replies to the UNHCR also: even the French representative who mentioned a figure of 10,000 has now explained (Paris telno. 520) that this figure is not a quota but rather intended to indicate the broad order of magnitude. And finally the Governor, Hong Kong, has advised that intervention by the UNHCR in Hong Kong's problems, though not related directly to the PCR, might strike the wrong note. I therefore recommend that in our dealings with all countries, both those we have already approached and other European countries, we should not try to treat this matter in the context of the UNHCR appeal; but that the appeal can be mentioned privately when countries indicate that they are considering the problem against that background. The High Commission in Canberra has already indicated that this is the preferred Australian approach; and according to a telephone call from the Embassy in Copenhagen this afternoon, this may well be the way the Danes will want to handle it.
90/2 5.
attached.
6.
Notes on where we stand with each individual country are
SEAD, WED, UND, M&VD and EID (E) concur.
15 May 1975
Mullalo
PL O'Keeffe
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
fagmething There is menit in do-it-yourself on
& Kang refugees katel/uakes
Сс
PS/Mr Ennals
SEAD
The key
PS/PUS
WED
PS
UND
M&VD
CONFIDENTIAL
a
Proce 1/5
belfer ansura appears