IN PARTMENT OF TRADE 1 VICTORIA STREET LONDON SWIH OET
1204
Telephone 01-215 7877
RESTRICTED
HKK 243 HK!
From the Secretary of State
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1. Me
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Bryan Cartledge Esq 10 Downing Street London, SW1
SEAD
PS JAN AVER R/MIN MANyew
25 June 1979
Affies
Sen A. Purom
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Dear Buycin,
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
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in. Leahy
M. Fergusson
Legal Adonir
сто Ban
нке 2
You asked last week for a revised draft of a reply for the Prime
Minister to send to Lord Inverforth. I explained that it was difficult for this Department to provide such a draft without an input from the FCO who were handling the negotiations over the "Roachbank". I now attach a reply based on information we have received from the FCO that a DC10 belonging to BCal has been chartered by a UNHCR offshoot to fly all the Roachbank refugees into the UK today. There will be no reception or temporary holding of the refugees by the Taiwanese Authorities who have procrastinated in order to reach a position whereby they will merely allow transit between the ship and the aircraft. There has, however, been no aircraft space available until now. Their haste now to get rid of the problem has, apparently, led to their accepting the BCal DC10 despite the fact that landings by this aircraft in Taiwan are otherwise banned.
No reference has been made in the draft to the problem of recompense to Bank Line since there is only an oblique and not a direct reference to this in Lord Inverforth's letter. You should know, however, that he made reference to this idea in the House of Lords' debate on 21 June on Lord Rochdale's motion about the UK shipping industry.
The draft has been cleared with the FCO at official level.
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