Such
introductory statement, the Secretary-General emphasized that with over 350,000 refugees remaining in the ASEAN countries and Hong Kong, it was essential that the international community at large should act in a decisive iner to ease the burden imposed upon these countries. action, he said, would enable those States to adhere to the basic principle of first asylum and to contribute, within the limits of their possibilities, to an overall programme for providing adequate solutions
for the refugees.
12.
The participants to this problem at the meeting agreed that there could be no humane or durable solution unless governments granted at least temporary asylum in accordance with internationally accepted humanitarian principles. This was specifically recognized by the Governor of Hongkong who stated that Hong Kong was a place of first asylum which had carried out its obligations to the full. At the same time, States pledged full support to ensure that first asylum countries in the region would receive adequate assistance to meet the burden they would face in meeting their obligations and in particular that revised resettlement plans would be made available in order to ease the burden imposed by the influx on States
in the region.
13.
It may be concluded that although there is no specific obligation on States to grant permanent asylum in the sense of a durable solution, there is a specific duty to respect the principle of non-refoulement and, in line with basic considerations of humanity, to admit asylum-seekers at least on a temporary basis pending the identification of a durable solution. At the same time, the principle of international solidarity which underpins the international community's commitment to assure refugees the widest possible exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms as expressed also at the 1979 meeting, calls for all States to participate in the provision of such solutions when the magnitude of a refugee influx, such as the one in the late 1970s, constitutes an impossible burden for the countries of first asylum to deal with on their own.
14. Since the beginning of the outflow until the end of September 1987, a total of some 612,176 Vietnamese had arrived in boats in first asylum
percent, Of these, some 111,411, or 18.2 countries in South East Asia. arrived in Hongkong. During the same period a total of 589,872 Vietnamese departed from these same countries under resettlement programmes of whom