CONFIDENTIAL
13 July 1993
Mr M L Howard
Secretariat (Overseas) (Commitments)
Ministry of Defence Main Building Whitehall
SW1
HKA 063/1
JUL 1993
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
142
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
270 3725
на
ils bunter f.:
Na Gandhi
Dear Martin,
HONG KONG GARRISON:
EXERCISES IN KOREA
1. Thank you for your letter D/SCC (0)(C) 67 of 22 June which we discussed on the telephone. I know you also had a word with David Wright in the margins of the Heads of Mission Conference. I apologize for not replying sooner but as explained I wanted to seek the post's views and clear our lines also with David Wright while he was over here on leave. What follows reflects very much his own thinking.
I
2.
We can well see that there are cost benefits for the MOD. What we cannot see is any evidence of benefit for the UK from an FCO standpoint, in fact, the reverse. We are all agreed I think that any sort of involvement in Team Spirit or any question of looking at training as compensation for withdrawing the Honour Guard is a nonsence. If training were to take place we would have to explain to the South Korean government why we were now bringing troops into Korea after successfully extracting ourselves from our Honour Guard commitment a few months ago. Doing that also helped us to distance ourselves from any commitment to the Republic of Korea in the event of a conflict on the peninsula, something which the MOD themselves were anxious to see. Having to tell the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our intention to bring in troops would in our view be a step in the wrong direction. We would furthermore be obliged to re-open the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) issue, an agreement we found to be flawed in June 1992 when there was an incident involving the Gurkhas in Seoul. That would involve a lengthy consultations with the MFA and others which would give additional work to the Embassy. It would also put us in a situation of asking something from the Koreans thus giving them a handle over us.
FED17/GEN/howard13.7
CONFIDENTIAL