Cablegram 5 BATAVIA, 9 January 1947
SECRET
Your telegram No.3. [1]
1.(a) British Consul-General informs me that the United Kingdom Government made an application for an exequatur for him about April last; that owing to existence of Allied Military Administration at the time, matter was not proceeded with; he assumes that on departure of AFNEI application would revive but does not know whether exequatur has yet been granted or not.
Exequatur for British Consul has also been sought; result of this not known here. In neither case was Republican Government referred to. I understand that when the agreement is signed the Consulate- General will have a liaison officer resident at or visiting Djokjakarta.
(b) Exequaturs have been sought for Belgian and French Consuls- General, and, I think, Swiss Consul also; do not know about Chinese and American Consuls-General. However, Sjahrir states that in no case has the Republican Government been consulted or informed.
2.(a) I conveyed to Sjahrir the assurance contained in your paragraph 3, and the impossibility of making any formal appointment just now needed no emphasis. He responded readily to an invitation to comment on the position generally. His first point was that the Netherlands East Indies had disappeared and that the problem was what was going to replace it internationally.
(He referred to this as a problem for the Dutch-I did not quite see the point of this, but could get no clarification from him.) The Republic had nothing to do with the Netherlands East Indies, even in a truncated form, because its agreement was with the Netherlands Government.
(b) Dealing with Article 7(3) [2] he emphasised that it was not foreign relations, but co-operation in foreign relations that was one of the ‘joint interests’ of the Kingdom and the USI.
(c) He did not have much to say about whether the Republic as well as the USI would be a new international person, emphasising that what mattered now was the two year period pending the formation of the USL During that period, the Republic would continue to manage its own affairs, and certainly not under any NEI administration.
Mutual representation with other countries was desired, but he supposed it would have to be ‘vague’ in nature during that period.
(d) He mentioned, during general conversation, that Iraq had decided to recognise the Republic, and that Pandit Nehru had written to him on the same subject and he had answered that the time for recognition had not arrived yet.
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1 Document 2.
2 See Document 2, note 2.
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[AA:A4355/2, 1/8/2]