TNAG-0716-FCO40-912-Air-hijacking-and-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 16

CONFIDENTIAL

DSR 11C

Is any more formal document than the Statement needed?

3.

Dissension could arise on the questions in para. 2

But any

above unless the original Statement is expanded.

attempt to negotiate a formal, legally binding commond

document might not succeed and might frighten off other

possible participants. The Secretary of State's own

suggestion of a code of conduct is probably the best

solution. This could either take the form of a formal code

or of informal ground rules. The latter would probably be

preferable.

Participation of other Governments

4.

Here there are three related questions:

(a) Which other Governments?

There is a choice

between inviting all other Governments or just some.

The disadvantage of inviting all (on the assumption

that the answer to para 2 (a) above is that action is

only taken if the hijacked aircraft belongs to one of

the adherents) would be that, if countries like Israel

and South Africa joined, we could be drawn on their

behalf into a confrontation with the Arab countries or

certain countries in Black Africa. Moreover, the

latter would be unlikely to adhere if their enemies did.

It might be preferable to restrict participation to

e.g. the OECD countries. But we should bear in mind

that the UK, in particular, could be dependent on

overflying rights over countries like Iran and India

whose adherence to the Statement might be

advantageous.

(b) A question related to para 3 above is whether the

other Governments approached should be invited to issue

individually a comparable Statement and signify

/individually