UN 618/1
His Highness
DVD N
**0.51
6 AUG 1976
10x1/243/548/3
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan
UNITED KINGDOM MISSION
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Palais des Nations
GENEVA
37-39 RUE DE VERMONT
1202 GENEVA
TELEPHONE 34 38 00
33 23 83
2 August 1976
My der High Commissioner,
122
The British authorities in London are awaiting with great interest the communication about "Refugees in Small Boats" on which you gave me some advance information when
I called on you on 28 July. As I mentioned to you on that occasion, it is the British Government's very strong hope that some moans can be found to devise an international solution for this very difficult problem.
The British authorities have expressed to me their concern lest, in the process of working out the scheme which you have in mind, over-sanguine impressions should be created about it in the media and in the public mind. It would obviously be most regrettable if as a result of such an impression gaining currency, the resources likely to be available under an international scheme were over-stretched almost before it had been agreed upon. The sort of thing which I have in mind is the danger that large numbers of people considering leaving their country in small boats might be led to commit themselves to doing so simply because they heard that they could now be sure of being accepted under the scheme you are trying to devise to such an extent that what is presumably bound to be its limited capacity became quite excessively over-loaded.
I am sure that this sort of consideration is very much in your own mind, but I thought it nevertheless just worth mentioning to you the fact that it is also in ours. At some
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