TNAG-0779-FCO40-983-Involvement-of-Hong-Kong-in-air-services-agreements-1978 — Page 12

Miss Brown

No. A sement N Thompson

fair

PAC

CONFIDENTIAL

Mr Butler

UK/AUSTRALIA AIR SERVICES

398

any problems for the Hong Kong angle? 1977.

HKK 184/1

RECEN

INDEX

10 JUL 1978

No late

A

حملة

At the end of the recent talks with Australfan officials,

the UK delegation "undertook to put the Australian proposals to their Ministers as a matter of urgency, explaining that the

Australian Government required a British commitment in principle

before approaching any other countries". The two delegations

agreed that they should meet again as soon as possible.

2. We are still awaiting DOT's approval of the draft submission

at A including the draft reply to the Australians.

Meanwhile I

should be grateful for your reactions and those of Mr Murray to

the drafts as they stand.

3. The draft reply to the Australians is designed to give the

Australians a little, but not to prejudice our ability to retreat

if the reaction of third countries is unexpectedly tough and in particular if there are signs of their ganging up against the scheme.

Mr Rogers is likely to argue that we should be much more forthcoming.

Although it is in our interests for the Australians to make

most of the running with third countries so as to draw their fire,

we would need to tell India, Malaysia, and Thailand that, if the

scheme was implemented, we would not want to cut their airline's

services to London. We would also want to assure Indonesia that

4.

/her

CONFIDENTIAL