CONFILEN MAL
HO CHI MIKE FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION
t Objectives
1
To avoid involvement in a dispute between China and Vietnam over control of airspacè in the South China Sea.
2
To confine discussion of the Vietnamese proposals for their resumption of responsibility for all of the Ho Chi Minh FIR to a technical consideration in the multilateral context of the ICAO RAN meeting of Vietnam's capability of safely operating sectors of the FIR now operated by other States and to avoid if possible any bilateral discussions on the subject with the Vietnamese until an ICAO decision on the matter has been made.
3
To limit to a minimum bilateral discussions with the Chinese on the Vietnamese proposals and Chinese counter-proposals, steering bilateral approaches from the Chinese into the context of technical multilateral discussions.
Line to Take
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The UK regards the question of future responsibility for the parts of the former Ho Chi Minh FIR currently administered Hong Kong and others as a technical matter to be dealt with in ICAO by an examination of Vietnam's capability of safely operating the sectors of the FIR in question. The safe operation of the FIR must be the governing consideration. If raised: the allocation of responsibility for an FIR is itself a technical matter which is without prejudice to questions concerning sovereignty over territories or oceans beneath the airspace concerned.
in
2 There are some technical difficulties for Hong Kong exercising responsibility over that part of the former Ho Chi Minh FIR which currently forms part of the extended Hong Kong FIR; bus these difficulties are not overriding. The UK can agree to continue the existing arrangements or adopt new ones for the management of the former Ho Chi Minh FIR, provided that the arrangements proposed are technically acceptable and that they command a consensus within ICAO.
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