DHARAMSALA – The Tibetan government-in-exile said on Tuesday it wants to continue talks with China to find a settlement that may allow them to return to the
region now claimed in full by Beijing.
A task force of senior Tibetian leaders met with the Dalai Lama at a village in northern India in December to chalk out a strategy for future talks.
The Tibetan prime minister in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, and two envoys of the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, led the meeting in Gopalpur near Dharamsala — the seat of the exiled government, said Sonam Norbu Dagpo, the spokesman of the task force.
Gyari and Gyaltsen are based in Washington D.C. and Brussels respectively.
“The task force met to take stock of the past meetings and the discussions held between the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Chinese leaders and to lay down future plans for envoys to clear any misunderstandings between the two sides to pave a way for negotiations for the Tibetan issue,” Dagpo said.
Relations between the two sides were shattered for about a decade until the renewed contacts in September 2002 and the two sides have met three times in China since then to discuss a possible return of Tibetan exiles.
“We are in the process of a renewed contact with the Chinese leadership and the immediate task ahead is to narrow down the persisting gap so as to start negotiations between the two sides,” Dagpo said.
India has played host to the Dalai Lama, 69, and his Tibetan government in exile since he fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Thousands of other Tibetans also have sought refuge in India.
Tibetan exiles have long accused Beijing of trying to wipe out Tibet’s Buddhist-based culture through political and religious repression and a flood of ethnic Chinese immigration.
