§ Rear-Admiral Morgan Gilesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and 92W Commonwealth Affairs what is Her Majesty's Government's present policy regarding the South East Asia Treaty Organisation; and what changes are proposed.
§ Mr. FoleyThe policy of Her Majesty's Government was stated in paragraph 17 of Chapter 1 of the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1968, published in February, 1968, as follows
Our force declaration to S.E.A.T.O. will be reduced as our forces are withdrawn from Singapore and Malaysia. We shall however, maintain our interest in the stability of the Middle East and the Far East; and one of the ways in which we shall demonstrate this will be by our continuing membership of C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O.As noted in paragraph 14 of the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1968, published in July, 1968, "We have explained the implications of our withdrawal to our S.E.A.T.O. allies and have informed them of the changes we are making in our force contributions to S.E.A.T.O.'s contingency plans during our withdrawal. When we have completed the withdrawal, we shall not declare forces to those contingency plans, although we shall remain members of the organisation".
This remains the position and no changes are proposed.