TNAG-2161-FCO40-3083-Hong-Kong-visa-abolition-agreements-1990 — Page 176

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- 9 APR 1990

TRY

Pa

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RESTRICTED

Any 26

UK/ARGENTINE VISA ABOLITION AGREEMENT: MEETING 2.30 pm 23 MARCH

M. Stone HKD

mich is

note

2.) for info.

2013 المسلمة

1.

The meeting was held to discuss Buenos Aires telegrams 206

/ 208 (attached) which contain the text of the Argentine note which

would form the basis of the Abolition Agreement. The Argentines wanted their note plus our reply to constitute the Visa Abolition Agreement, which they would like signed on 9 April when the Argentine Foreign Minister sees the Secretary of State in London.

2. The following main points emerged from the discussion:-

a) It was pointed out that the text of the Argentine draft note was basically a rewrite of the 1967 Abolition Agreement minus clauses 5a and 6. We agreed that we could happily exclude 5a, but we would wish to reinsert paragraph 6, which would be useful from our point

of view.

#

b) We would need to reword paragraph 2 of the Argentine note on the following lines: "... but possess valid British passports of the

type described in the annex to this note. An annex should be

attached which specifies the various British national statuses and

endorsements to which the agreement should apply.

Action: Passport Office to provide full annex, which should take

account of the new EC common format passport.

c) There was some doubt as to whether the Argentines would be prepared to allow the abolition agreement to apply to all nationality categories. So it was therefore agreed that the Embassy in Buenos Aires, with instructions, would have to explain the categories when they handed over our reply to the note. These categories were basically covered in the 1967 agreement under the reference to "UK and Colonies", although we agreed that we should now specifically exclude British Protected Persons. We also agreed that we should include the category (British National) (Overseas), which covers citizens from Hong Kong, as it might draw undue attention if we were to exclude them.