Dalai Lama returns to Dharamsala after his US visit

Sunday, February 28, 2010

ANI
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His Holiness the Dalai Lama is being greeted at the Gaggal Airport, in Dharamsala, India, Saturday, February 27, 2010. The Tibetan leader arrived to his exile hometown in North India following a high-profile visit to US, where he met with the President Barack Obama in the White House. (Photo by Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL)

Dharamsala, Feb 27: Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, returned to Dharamsala on Saturday after his visit to the United States, where he met President Barack Obama.

Dalai Lama met Obama, at the White House on February 18, drawing an angry reaction from China and risking further damage to strained Sino-U.S. ties.

Raising issues that quickly stoked China's ire, Obama used his first presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama to press Beijing, under international criticism for its Tibet policies, to preserve Tibetan identity and respect human rights there.

Large number of Tibetans gathered outside the Kangra airport to give a grand welcome to their spiritual leader.

"I think the Tibetans are really very blessed, considering the fact that his holiness' recent visit to Washington, the United States has been a really grand success. The historic meeting with Obama is a milestone towards achieving global peace....the fact that His Holiness has been endowed with the freedom award by the National Endowment for Democracy, based in United States," said Dhadon, a Tibetan lady.

"So we are all here to celebrate basically to offer or to honor our leader with the deepest and the greatest respect that we have here for him," she added.

Obama met the Dalai Lama-who is reviled by the Chinese government as a dangerous separatist, but admired by many around the world as a man of peace-in the face of wider tensions over U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

During the 70-minute meeting, Obama encouraged China and the Dalai Lama's envoys to keep up efforts to resolve their differences through negotiations, despite recent talks having yielded little progress.

The United States says it accepts Tibet is part of China, but wants Beijing to address differences over the region's future.