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Foreign Ministers.
I have
consistently made clear that I consider my proposals are wholly compatible with these. The Ambassador once again pressed for agreement on a starting date.
7.
In this situation, I thought it only fair to give
Honourable Members an account of where we now stand. As far as
we are concerned we are ready to talk immediately. There remain outstanding some points of detail raised by the Chinese side which we regard as relatively minor; despite this the Chinese
side have declined to discuss a date for the beginning of talks
until they are resolved. I do not intend at this stage to set
out the details of the points outstanding, because that would
probably make it impossible to resolve them. I do not think the community would wish that. We are pressing for the outstanding differences to be resolved urgently. In the meantime, we judge
it best to defer gazettal for fourth time today. I look forward to a speedy Chinese response.
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