* RESTRICTED
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
C W Long Esq
UKMIS GENEVA
Dear Christopher,
Andoria
ва
ose
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
Date 11 August 1983
UNISAH TJ.
:
ANDORRA AND THE ITU
1. Thank you for all the work UKMIS have put into this question, including Paula Roberts' letter to Eric Jenkinson of 28 June, and send ing the official ITU list of Members agreeing to the Andorran application, as well as the work I know you have put into it personally.
2. We agree with your assessment that Andorra will reapply. We will need to consider carefully what we should do. We would not wish to seem to be leading the pack against an Andorran reapplication, but we would hope for the underlying issues to be resolved more satisfactorily than they were this time.
We would therefore think it useful to do some preliminary work in advance and, in particular, try to get something more substantive from the ITU Secretariat on their views as to interpretation of "sovereign country". Although our enquiry will inevitably be linked with the Andorran application, we would like to keep it low-key and in fairly general terms.
which you might send to the ITU.
I attach a draft letter
3. It is possible that the ITU will respond that it is for ITU Members to decide on interpretation. If so, we will consider whether we would try to insist on an ITU interpretation. But whatever their reaction, we would hope over the next few months to get a more satisfactory resolution of the distinction between, in effect, "sovereign country" and "sovereign state".
'sovereign state". (This said, the original adoption of the term "sovereign country" is so far in the past -
the International Telecommunications Convention, Atlantic City, 1947 or earlier - that it is doubtful whether anything can really be gained by our going back to its origins. The Andorran application, however, seems to us to be the first time the question has really been put to the test.)
محمد
Yours con
kit.
CP Burdess
Energy, Science and Space Department