RESTRICTED
From:
Minister
Date:
29 October, 1991
cc:
Sir David Gillmore Minister (C)
Head of Chancery
Mr Tebbit
Mr Torry
ML
DLUWIC
Private SecrelaLy
PUS'S CALL ON THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ASIA: 28 October, 1991
1. Sir D Gillmore congratulated Mr Solomon on the outcome of the Cambodia negotiations. Mr Solomon said that he was reasonably confident the settlement would work. It would cost a lot of money. He acknowledged that the British had raised this point very much the first. The Americans were now looking at the situation in Korea in the light of their experience in Cambodia. They envisaged a two-track process with the P5 engaged on one of them and a version of the 2 + 4 on the other. The two in question would be North and South Korea, together with the four countries (USSR, Japan, US, China) around them. The nuclear question was by far the most important. The Americans were thinking the matter through. The North Koreans had something like nine months to go before they achieved a reprocessing ability. This was a serious, even nasty
situation.
2.
Sir D Gillmore said there had been criticism in the British press of the Cambodia settlement because of the claim that it would
Mr Solomon said represent a return by the Khmer Rouge to power. that the Administration would like to see UNTAC present sooner and in larger numbers than seemed for now to be in prospect. wondered whether Pentagon planners might help the process along. None of the prospective special representative seemed particularly perhaps be too bad.
+1.
3. Sir D Gillmore said he wanted to return to the Korean situation. He had been struck by what Mr Solomon had said as to the imminence of a North Korean reprocessing ability. Mr Solomon said that North Korea was in a bad economic and political state. There could be a temptation for it to go nuclear therefore in partial compensation. That would incline the South to go ahead as well. In these circumstances the Japanese would take a real chill. It was essential to work for diplomatic and economic constraints. But it would be difficult.
4. Mr Solomon said that the state of US/Chinese relations was parlous. The Americans hoped to keep 'Peking in play until there was a leadership change. The Prime Minister's presentation in Peking on human rights had been very well received in Washington. He noted that there had been encouraging economic progress in the South. But in general we were waiting for change in the gerontocracy: it was hard to say when that would come about.
5. Mr Solomon referred to the correspondence between the Prime
/Minister
CONFIDENTIAL