بچے کچھے
in
ion?
Ms Olivia Walker
Hong Kong Dept
FCO
Dear Ms Walker,
RESTRICTED
BRITISH EMBASSY
Via XX Settembre 80A 00187 Rome
Telephone 475.5441 475.5551
Me thrish ke 717/10 Листарконам Me Leek/R
M.
312
Reg ac dur Nash SEAD please.
Nash,
Your reference th
Our reference
Date
RW 17/10
17/10
thepa Ab
SCORED
14 October 1985
235
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG
1. FCO.
2.
207
Please refer to FCO telno 507 to Bonn and Rome telno 805 to
Counsellor Cappello, Head of Asian (Political) Department at the MFA in Rome, gave me a fuller reply to our approach to the Italians, when I called on him on 14 October. Cappello thanked us for setting out the difficulties arising from the presence of such large numbers of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong and the wider political considerations. He said that Italy appreciated
the seriousness of the problem. He thought that in the longer term Italy might be able to accept a small number of refugees as a symbolic gesture. For the time being however there were a number of factors which prevented Italy increasing its offtake.
3.
Cappello said that in recent years Italy had accepted more than 3,000 refugees from South East Asia. It would continue to accept further refugees who already had relatives settled here. He pointed out however that a significant proportion of the refugees from South East Asia, who arrived in Italy, subsequently sought permission to settle in third countries, usually Canada Australia or the USA.
4.
/
Cappello said that earlier decisions to accept refugees from South East Asia for settlement in Italy were taken for humanitarian reasons and at a time when Italy was not under great pressure to accept requests for settlement from refugees in other parts of the world. In the past two years, however, the flow of refugees from Eastern Europe to Italy has reached such levels that the government-run transit camps in which refugees are accommodated until they can be properly settled are severely over-crowded and their resources overstretched. Cappello commented that the Italians faced similar situation at their réception centres in Italy as that described by us as threatening the government of Hong Kong (paragraph 4 (iv) of FCO telno 507 to Bonn).
a
YKK 243/2 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
22 OCT 1985
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
REGLTHY
PA
Action Taken
/5.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.