Dalai Lama aide dismisses reported Beijing protest

Saturday, August 21, 2010

AFP
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Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama greets the audience as he arrives to give a lecture at Delhi University in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

DHARAMSHALA, India — An aide to the Dalai Lama dismissed on Saturday reported criticism by China of a meeting between the Tibetan spiritual leader and India's prime minister.

The Dalai Lama made a "routine call" on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi last week, Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama's senior aide, told AFP.

"There was nothing unusual about the meeting," Tsering said.

Tsering's statement came after the newspaper The Indian Express reported that China had objected to the August 11 meeting through diplomatic channels.

China, which considers the Dalai Lama a "splittist" despite his repeated calls for autonomy rather than independence for Tibet, has been increasingly vocal in demanding that world leaders refuse to meet the Buddhist leader.

"The Chinese are always upset whatever His Holiness does," said Tsering.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said he could not comment on the reported objections by Beijing.

But foreign minister S.M. Krishna, in an apparent effort to allay Chinese worries, noted the Dalai Lama is "a spiritual leader and we do not encourage anyone to get into political activities which will effect the relations between the two countries".

Tsering said the meeting was the first between the Dalai Lama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh since the Congress-led government returned to power last year.

He said the two men had previously met about two years ago.

Indo-Chinese relations have become more prickly in recent times over such issues as trade and their disputed Himalayan border -- the trigger for a brief, bloody war in 1962.

The meeting with Singh came after India's foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, the most senior civil servant in the Indian foreign ministry, held talks with the Dalai Lama in the northern Indian hill station of Dharamshala in July.

Both sides refused to comment on those talks.

Dharamshala has been home to the Tibetan government-in-exile since the Dalai Lama fled to India more than half a century ago after China crushed an uprising in Tibet.

China has in the past accused the Dalai Lama of seeking to stir up tensions between New Delhi and Beijing.

Last year, the Dalai Lama made a visit to a Buddhist region near India's disputed Himalayan border with Tibet, infuriating China, which called it an attempt to destabilise Indo-Chinese ties.