Dalai Lama envoys return from China after talks

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

The Associated Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

File Photo: Two envoys of the Dalai Lama Lodi Gyari, right, and Kelsang Gyaltsen during a press conference in Dharamshala, India, on 16 November 2008. Gyari and Gyaltsen returned to India on Monday following ninth round of talks in China on the future of Tibet after a 15-month hiatus.

NEW DELHI-- Two envoys of the Dalai Lama have returned to India after meeting officials in Beijing for the first talks on restive Chinese-ruled Tibet in 15 months, a spokesman for the exiled spiritual leader said Monday.

No details were available immediately about the weekend discussions between Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen and the senior Communist Party officials they met, said Chhime R. Chhoekyapa, the Dalai Lama's secretary.

After arriving in the Indian capital early Monday, the two envoys are expected to go to the north Indian hill town of Dharmsala later in the day to brief the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, on the talks, Chhoekyapa said.

At the last talks in 2008, the Dalai Lama's envoys proposed a way for Tibetans to achieve more autonomy under the Chinese constitution - a key demand of the minority community. But China apparently rejected the plan, saying it would not allow Tibet the kind of latitude granted to the territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese officials insisted they would only address the return of the Dalai Lama, who fled to exile in 1959.