MEMORANDUM CONCERNING TRAVEL
DOCUMENTS ISSUED BT ICRC TO CERTAIN KOREANS
I. Reference is made to the case of issuance of travel documents by the International Committee of Red Cross to the 48 Korean residents in Japan who allegedly expressed their desire to go to north Korea.
Strong protests have previously been filed by the Government of the Republic of Korea with the Committee against the latter's action in issuing on July 1, 1956 the travel documents in question. The Committee has further been requested by the Korean Government to withdraw the travel documents which had been issued in total disregard of sovereign rights of the Republic of Korea. The request, however, has not been yet complied with and thus, to the utmost regret of the Korean Government, with the ICRC issued travel documents, twenty, out of the original 48 Koreans have actually gone to north Korea.
Under the circumstances, this delegation finds it necessary repeat its protest in this regard.
II. The Committee's attention is drawn to the fact that it is impossible to consider the problem of repatriation of Koreans in Japan separately from their overall problem that exists between Korea and Japan. The overall problem concerning the 600,000 Korean residents in Japan was one of the most important items on the agenda of the Korea -Japan Conference held in three different times. The question which is strictly political and legal is also concerned with their properties in Japan, etc.
Any solution to the overall problem must be arrived at by the two Governments concerned and the Committee certainly has no jurisdiction over this matter. Any involvement of the Committee in this inter-governmental affairs can only be considered as unwarranted intervention.
As made clear on various occassions, the subject Koreans are not stateless or displaced requiring the ICRC humanitarian aid. All the Koreans in Japan are nationals of the Republic of Korea who entered Japan and have established their legal domicile there since before the termination of World War II., and the Government of the Republic of Korea has exclusive right and obligation to protect interests of these people. This delegation has no doubt that no outsider can challenge such Government's right of protection over its citizens abroad, including issuance of travel documents to them.
In this sense, the Korean Government can not telerate any undue intervention in its sovereign right to protect its own nationals resident abroad, especially when such intervention is promoting the causes of both Japan and the Korean communists in northern Korea.
It is also pointed that the Committee issued the travel documents to expedite the travel of the 48 Koreans in Japan to north Korea without prior consultation with the Government of the Republic of Korea.
III. It must, therefore, be concluded that the Committee has not acted in accordance with its usual function by performing an act which essentially affects political affairs and constitutes a derogation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea. This delegation requests, under the grounds described in the above, that the International Committee of Red Cross effect, without delay, withdrawal of the travel documents from the remaining 28 Koreans in Japan and give an assurance that it would not intervene in any way in political complications regarding the repatriation of Koreans in Japan, refraining from issuing travel documents to any Koreans in Japan.

New Delhi, November 2, 1957