would be widely seen to be the more important part of
the tour. They will appreciate the counters of
advance warning of the visit to Peking and are likely
still to be understanding of the reason for the continuing
Oof
delay in one proposing dates for the reinstatement of
the Prime Minister's tour of South East Asia.
But
they will be looking for reassurance that the Prime
Minister continues to attach a high priority to her visit on the Malaysian Foreign Minister himself recently isid the secretary of state.
ཧུ་。
The Foreign Secretary is concerned that if news of the
Prime Minister's possible visit to Sri Lanka at Easter
should leak in Columbo, as it did when the visit was
eviously primarily planned, before we have put dates to South East
Asian capitals for the tour there Dr Mahathir, in
particular, may be seriously upset. The draft telegram
accordingly, includes a defensive line against this
contingency. We know that Dr Mahathir expects to
be in Europe for most of April and that the Indonesians
would not find a visit in March convenient, So that
a decision to visit Sri Lanka at Easter need not as
We have
tien started disenssing
such, cause offence providing(
provisional
Gy
dates for the Prime Minister's visit to
South East Asia.