– 143 – (6.1 – ITU Membership) 6 EXTERNAL RELATIONS 6.1 ITU Membership R 88 (C-1948, last amended (C-1976) Relations of the General Secretariat of the Union with States or administrations which are not Members of the Union The Council, considering that it is advisable to give precise instructions to the Secretary-General in regard to the attitude he must adopt in the event of receiving communications from States or administrations which are not Members of the Union, and also in regard to the dispatch of documents of the Union that such States or administrations might request, resolves that 1 with the exception specified below, the Secretary-General may correspond with, or forward documents to, Members; 2 the Secretary-General is authorized to correspond with States or administrations not mentioned in paragraph 1 above, with a view to informing them on accession to the Union and the implementation of the Convention or Regulations, or in the case of formal requests to accede, transmitted in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Convention; 3 in respect of any other communication he may receive from a State or administration which is not a Member, the Secretary-General shall take the following steps: a) if the communication concerns a matter of policy that the Council should normally consider and resolve, or in the case of doubt, he shall restrict himself to acknowledging it, informing the sender that it will be referred to the Council; b) if the communication is clearly of a factual nature, connected with the telecommunication services, the Secretary-General shall acknowledge it, informing the sender that a copy will be sent to the Members of the Union for their information, and shall take action accordingly in each case; 4.1 in cases referred to in paragraph 3 b) above, the Secretary-General shall publish the communication received under the heading: “Information received from sources outside the Union”, followed by a note to the effect that the publication of the information in question does not imply recognition of the status of the sender in relation to the Union; 4.2 however, if the nature of the information received is such as to warrant its inclusion in official documents, it shall not be published separately, but shall be incorporated in the appropriate documents, under the title and with the explanatory note referred to in paragraph 4.1; 5.1 requests for documents, public sale of which is authorized, may be complied with in return for payment; 5.2 all Notifications, communications and circular letters distributed gratis by the Secretary-General to Members of the Union shall be furnished by him to any private individual or to any organization on request in return for payment at a price to be fixed by the Secretary-General; 6 until Germany becomes a Member once again, the Secretary-General is authorized to correspond with the Allied Control Commission in Germany; he shall, as a practical measure, be provisionally authorized to correspond with the occupation zones of Germany, bearing in mind the practice at present in force. Ref.: Documents 265/CA3 (1948), 549/CA4 (1949), 803/CA5 (1950), 1606/CA9 (1954), 4965/CA31 (1976).