Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH
David Messias Esq
Nyman, Libson, Paul & Co
Regina House
124 Finchley Road LONDON
NW3 5JS
Telephone 01- 233 4439
да
Your reference
Our reference
Date
29 July 1982 HKR 020/2
File.
тод
Plan 2417
I have been asked by the Permanent Under-Secretary to reply to your letter of 9 June enclosing an article from the Birmingham (Alabama) News of 2 June. I apologise for the delay in replying but we have had to deal with a great deal of correspondence over the past few weeks on the Falklands and dependent territory matters, as I hope you may realise.
The article is based on a syndicated piece by Mr Walter Easey which appeared in The Guardian on 26 April. A similar piece was carried by the Glasgow Herald in May and others have probably appeared elsewhere. Mr Easey, a former Hong Kong police officer, frequently writes on Hong Kong matters.
We had been engaged in negotiations with Argentina regarding the Falkland Islands for over 16 years, right up to the time of Argentina's invasion. A round of talks had been held only a month before. However, all attempts to achieve an acceptable negotiated solution foundered on the Argentinue insistence that the only outcome acceptable was one which recognised Argentine sovereignty, in disregard of the clearly and freely expressed wishes of the Falkland Islanders themselves. The vast majority of the Islanders (some 1400 out of a total of about 1800) already have the right of abode in the United Kingdom and will acquire British Citizenship by right when the new Nationality Act comes into force, though their clear preference has been to remain on the Falkland Islands under British administration. Thus the allegation that we 'deliberately delayed a settlement of the Falkland Islands dispute with Argentina' until 'some way could be found to make the tiresome inhabitants stop insisting on their right to stay British' is without foundation.
/Similarly