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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
3 September 1985
168
Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
Thank you for your letter of 14 August proposing a revised formula for use in response to recommendation 5(iii) of SCORRI's report.
The Foreign Secretary believes that the avoidance of any commitment at this stage to take more refugees will be very disappointing to Hong Kong and that it will make our task of approaching other resettlement countries more difficult. Given the time pressures, however, he is nevertheless prepared to agree to the form of words in your letter. However he considers it important that FCO and Home Office officials should keep in the closest touch over the implementation of this policy.
I enclose the texts of our proposed responses on recommendations 2, 3, 5(i), (ii) and (iv), and 6 for inclusion in the White Paper. They have all been agreed with the Hong Kong Government. Our response to recommendation 5(iv) is based closely upon the views of the Hong Kong Executive Council in the light of your own proposed response to recommendation 5(iii).
I know that our two Departments are in agreement over the need now to proceed as quickly as possible with publication of the White Paper. From our point of view a particularly important deadline is 7 October, when the Executive Council meeting of UNHCR begins in Geneva. This will provide the year's best opportunity to approach other resettlement countries on Hong Kong's behalf. I understand that the timetable to which you are working should enable you to publish the White Paper on 26 September. This timing would give other countries just enough time to study the UK's response to the recommendations on resettlement and to decide what, if any, additional level of offtake from Hong Kong they might be prepared to agree to before we approach them at the meeting. Any later publication date would seriously jeopardise this chance and we therefore consider it particularly important that this timetable does not slip.
HKK 243/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
04 SEP 1985
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