Dalai Lama in Germany for start of Western tour
15 May 2008 , 0911 hrs IST , AFP

FRANKFURT: The Dalai Lama arrives in Germany on Thursday at the start of a tour of Western powers, two months after China's crackdown on violence in Lhasa sparked international condemnation.

The visit will keep the issue of Tibet centre-stage until the Olympic Games start in Beijing in August. After Germany, the Tibetan spiritual leader will also visit the United States, Australia, Britain and France.

The Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala says 203 Tibetans were killed and 1,000 injured in the crackdown following anti-Chinese riots in March in Tibet.

Beijing says Tibetan "rioters" and "insurgents" killed 21 people and accuses the Dalai Lama of being behind the violence and of fomenting trouble ahead of the Olympics, an allegation rejected by the Buddhist cleric.

This month representatives of the Dalai Lama held talks with China to try to defuse tensions.

In Germany, the 1989 Nobel peace laureate's schedule has raised eyebrows as he will be meeting neither Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in Latin America, nor Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

When the Dalai Lama last came to Germany in September last year, a meeting with Merkel at the chancellery caused a deep chill in relations between Berlin and Beijing which only recently began to thaw.

A government spokesman denied that his schedule this time meant that Berlin was giving in to diplomatic pressure from China a key market for German firms like Volkswagen, Siemens and Bayer.