Moscow – The Fourteenth Dalai Lama is not insisting on independence for Tibet, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the Russian internal republic of Kalmykia, told a news conference held at the Interfax central office on Thursday.
On October 28, before visiting China’s foreign ministry, Ilyumzhinov telephoned the Dalai Lama and asked him to make his position clear on Tibet’s status of an autonomous region inside China. Ilyumzhinov quoted the Dalai Lama as saying, “Tell the head officials at the Chinese Foreign Ministry that there is no question of Tibet’s independence. We agree to Tibet’s existence as the Tibetan Autonomous Region in China.”
The Dalai Lama first mentioned this position at a meeting in the Indian town of Dharmsala back in August, Ilyumzhinov said. “The circumstances seems to be right for the return of the Dalai Lama [to Tibet]. I think this is possible,” he noted. Ilyumzhinov pledged “to do his best to have His Holiness Dalai Lama XIV return to Tibet.”
Ilyumzhinov is continuously in touch with the Dalai Lama, and attempted to invite him to visit Kalmykia – where half of the 300,000 population is Tibetan Buddhist – earlier this year. The Dalai Lama’s visa request was rejected by Moscow, however.
In August, the Dalai Lama then asked Ilyumzhinov “to visit Tibet and see what is going on there,” Ilyumzhinov said. “He asked me as head of a Russian region to see if everything is really that bad in Tibet,” he said.
Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Lu Guchang and Liu Yandong, a senior official in the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee headquarters, “wanted me to bring unbiased information to His Holiness’ attention,” Ilyumzhinov said
The Chinese central government provides significant support to religious institutions in Tibet, Ilyumzhinov said. “We visited a monastery in whose overhaul RMB 280 mln (USD 33.8 mln) were invested in 2003 alone,” he said.
There are nearly 1,700 buddhist monasteries in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Ilyumzhinov said. The Potala complex in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama’s residence, is being especially carefully preserved, he said. In the Dalai Lama’s personal rooms, everything, including a radio set and music center presented to the Dalai Lama by the British government remains exactly as it was in 1959 when he left Tibet, Ilyumzhinov said.
“China runs a program of developing the Tibetan autonomy that provides for investing RMB 86 bln (USD 10.4 bln) in it over ten years,” he said. “I saw for myself that real money is being invested, monasteries are being rebuilt and seminaries are being supported,” Ilyumzhinov said. He would relay his impressions to the Dalai Lama, he said.
The Chinese authorities say that relations with the Dalai Lama can be conducted on the principle of “one forfeiture and two recognitions,” or forfeiture of the idea of independence for Tibet and recognition of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s people’s government and recognition of a united China, Ilyumzhinov said.
The Tibetan issue is China’s internal problem, Ilyumzhinov said. He could not act as a mediator in the Dalai Lama’s dialogue with the Chinese leadership, he said.
