CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
FM FCO
TO PRIORITY HONG KONG
TELNO 320
OF 06170OZ APRIL 93
INFO ROUTINE MOSCOW
Si
Mr
ра
а
141670
MDLOAN 1358
N 2/4
YOUR TELNO 508? RUSSIAN CONSULATE IN HONG KONG
疇
1 Afanasyev was in London last week as part of a team from the Russian MFA holding talks on Asia with us.
2. In the course of the talks he referred to his visit to Hong Kong and emphasised that the Russian Consulate General there would be small. We had not at that time seen your TUR. But we took the opportunity of a discussion with Afanasyev at the Russian Embassy on 1 April to probe the reason for wanting such a Large Consulate, and whether it would be possible to find the funds given the high costs in Hong Kong.
3. Afanasyev acknowledged that he had been struck by the high costs of operating in Hong Kong. His comments suggested that the goal of 10 consular officers was a distinctly long term one. Afanasyev confirmed that the Russians would start slowly with some three officers and build up gradually.
4. It occurs to us that the Russians may well be planning to charge for visas issued in Hong Kong (as they do for some visas here) as means of generating funds for the mission. may go some way to accounting for the size of the projected consular staff.
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But we
5. As we said in our telno 135, we will scrutinise visa applications for staff at the Russian Consulate carefully and will consult you about any potential security problems. would not want to try to put a formal limit on numbers of Russian staff at the Consulate at this stage, particularly as moving to lifting ceilings on Russian staff in the UK.
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07 APR 1993
IN
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