CONFIDENTIAL
South East Asia
The Secretary General said that he had been quietly involved in discussion on the Cambodia problem. He wondered whether there was now an opportunity to get things moving following the settlement of Afghanistan. The Secretary of State said that he recently discussed the matter at the EC/ASEAN meeting. The main difference from Afghanistan was the existence in the case of Cambodia of Sihanouk, who might possibly act as a rallying force. The Secretary General said that the problem with Sihanouk was that he was very mercurial: others would not provide a solid foundation. would shortly be coming to the UN. It might be that matters would simply have to await the projected Vietnamese withdrawal in 1990. The Secretary of State said that we were becoming intensely worried about the increased flow of Vietnamese refugees to Hong Kong. We were likely to have to think about introducing some form of screening to distinguish the genuine political refugees from the economic migrants.
Southern Africa
The Secretary General spoke with enthusiasm of the recent meetings on Angola. He thought this progress would have seemed incredible only six months ago. The Secretary of State agreed that it was useful. The momentum needed to be kept up. He briefed the Secretary General in standard terms on our assessment of the situation inside South Africa.
Middle East
The Secretary General said that he was very concerned about the prospects in the Middle East. He commended the Shultz initiative but did not think that the right formula had yet been found. There would have to be a UN role eventually. He thought that the ideas recently propounded by Kissinger represented some advance on his previous position. The Secretary of State said that there was certainly no reason for optimism. It was of course an important plus that Shultz was thoroughly re-engaged. But there was no real sign of movement by Shamir. Meanwhile the situation in the Occupied Territories had gone from bad to worse. Mr Goulding remarked that in previous cases where diplomatic activity had been blocked, war had become inevitable.
The Secretary General expressed great concern about the preservation of Lebanese territorial integrity. If the elections later this year did not come off and there were no President, difficulties would arise for the UN, who are operating in Lebanon "at the President's request". He was thinking of calling the 5 Permanent Members together to address the problem. The last time he had done this the result had been SCR 598, which he regarded as a very good resolution. He would like to make more use of the 5 Permanent Members as
a group.
CONFIDENTIAL
/Ethiopia
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