TNAG-2547-FCO40-3722-Air-services-agreement-between-Hong-Kong-and-Uzbekistan-1992 — Page 2

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M Sheth,

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

3

6 May 1992

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LAST PAPER

©

HKC 181/31

M L Fielder Esq

International Aviation Directorate

Department of Transport

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 3EB

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12 MAY 1992

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London SWIA 2AH

Telephone: 071-

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UZBEKISTAN DRAFT AIR SERVICES AGREEMENT

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I refer to your letter of 30 April to Dr Hughes (AMD).

AMD Berly

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Our current position is that rights under the Air Services () (/s.

Agreement between the UK and the former Soviet Union. and its implementing arrangements, continue to apply in relations between the UK and the new republics. As far as Uzbekistan is concerned. the only relevant rights are overflight rights, currently enjoyed by BA and Cathay Pacific. The legal basis for our view rests on:-

(i) the recognition letters sent by the Prime Minister to the governments of the new republics in which we expressly stated that we regarded treaties and agreements between the UK and the former Soviet Union as remaining in force between the UK and, inter alia. Uzbekistan;

(ii) the subsequent actions of those republics which are consistent with the above, and which include the adoption of a "resolution on legal succession to the USSR" on 20 March 1992. which acknowledges in relation to "treaties of mutual interest" that "all the member states of the CIS are the legal successors of the rights and obligations of the former USSR"; and

(iii) the subsequent uninterrupted exercise by BA and Cathay Pacific of those overflight rights.

3 In your second paragraph you ask how a new ASA with Uzbekistan would relate to those existing arrangements. In my view it would be difficult to maintain that existing rights continued to exist between the UK and Uzbekistan if a new agreement weere to be concluded which regulated air service relations in a comprehensive way and in which specific overflight rights were granted In this situation the conclusion that could properly be drawn - in the absence of an express saving of existing rights would be that the parties intended the legal position. including over flight rights, to be governed by the new agreement and that the old UK/USSR agreement, in so far as it applied to Uzbekistan was no longer in

JGBAAC