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this year and agreed that priority should be given to close relatives. The FRG expressed disappointment at the drop in the number of their arrivals and suggested that UNHCR should send more staff to Vietnam. We said that we welcomed the Minister's candour on the administrative problems on both sides. Our Embassy in Hanoi was always ready to cooperate and discuss difficulties. It was important to have orderly arrivals as well as departures and we hoped that in future the Vietnamese would provide four weeks' notice about each person who would be leaving. Norway supported this request. The US reaffirmed their support for the ODP as a humanitarian alternative to illegal departures. had noticed a gratifying increase in the numbers arriving in their
They country but could take more, 1,000 a month, if Vietnam could process them. Several speakers mentioned the problems caused when a refugee did not appear following a notification of arrival. This was particularly distressing for the waiting family.
5. The Minister responded laboriously to each intervention. the request for four weeks notice he hoped that this could be discussed between his officials and UNHCR.
Private Meeting
On
1 6. Like six other countries (US, Australia, Norway, Sweden,
Netherlands and Denmark), we arranged a private meeting with the Vietnamese team. The Ambassador was chairing the UNHCR Sub- Committee on Protection and could not attend. Christopher Long therefore collected a full team to emphasise interest in the ODP and the operation, consisting of Roy MacDowall of the Home Office, Patrick Williamson from Hong Kong and myself. All the Vietnamese were present.
7. Long thanked the Minister for coming to Geneva, for agreeing to public and private meetings with those countries concerned, and on the stress in his speech on the humanitarian approach. Although our programme was smaller than several others we hoped we would not be overlooked. Vietnamese settlers already in the UK were naturally anxious for their missing close relatives to join them. He repeated his remark in the public meeting that orderly arrivals were important, and a four week notice period would assist every- body including the voluntary organisations in the UK on which we relied so much. We had recently discussed the programme with the new Vietnamese Ambassador in London; our Ambassador in Hanoi, who had called on the Minister in late July, was always available to discuss any problems.
8. The Minister expressed goodwill, said he was grateful for the help provided by our Embassy in Hanoi, and remarked that he would be pleased to meet Derek Tonkin "and his successor" on a regular basis, say every three months, to discuss progress. Britain, like Nordic countries, was flexible and pragmatic, not bureaucratic. Britain also had taken 88 of the 112 on the Vietnamese own list, a much higher proportion than other countries.
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