DHARMSALA, India – The Tibetan exile government hopes that the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Prime Minister Paul Martin next week will not affect tentative negotiations with China, which opposes the meeting.
“In spite of the Dalai Lama’s earlier meetings with the U.S. president and other world leaders, China has let two envoys visit Tibet in 2002 and 2003,” said Thupten Samphal a spokesman for the Tibetan exile government in northern India, where the Dalai Lama has his headquarters.
“I hope this meeting would not affect these negotiations in any way,” Samphal said on Friday.
China has objected to Martin’s plans to chat with the Dalai Lama, among other religious leaders, on April 23 in Ottawa, becoming the first Canadian prime minister to meet with the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader.
China says the Dalai Lama also has a political role and is working to separate Tibet from China.
The Dalai Lama insists he wants only autonomy so that Tibetans can preserve their language, religion and culture.
The Tibetan exile government also insists that the Dalai Lama is a political, as well as spiritual leader, but said it was glad Martin is meeting him at least in the context of a religious leader.
“It is a significant outcome marking the first time a Canadian prime minister has agreed to meet the Dalai Lama,” Samphal said. “And regardless of its context, it’s a recognition of the Dalai Lama as one of the most important world leaders.”
Norzin Dolma, a senior officer of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, linked with the exile government, said, “We would have been happier if he (Martin) had agreed to meet the Dalai Lama as a political leader, but something is better than nothing.”
The Dalai Lama fled to India following an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. Followed by thousands of Tibetans, he established a government-in-exile in the Indian mountain town of Dharmsala.
