A senior German politician visiting India on an official trip has met exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in spite of New Delhi’s deep reservations about such contacts, officials said.
Talks between Roland Koch, prime minister of the state of Hesse, and the Dalai Lama were held in the northern town of Dharamsala, they said.
“The German leader arrived here Friday and met with the Dalai Lama the same day for talks,” a top aide of the Tibetan leader told AFP by telephone from Dharamsala, headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile-in India.
“But it was strictly a private visit so we cannot talk about what was discussed,” the aide said, adding that Koch was accompanied by a delegation.
Koch also met Samdhong Rinpoche, chairman of the Kashak which is the highest decision-making body in the Tibetan administration, the aide added.
The minister left Dharamsala Saturday and returned to New Delhi the same day, Indian foreign ministry officials said. They insisted that the talks in Dharamasala were part of Koch’s private itinerary.
The German embassy in New Delhi declined to comment on the visit to the hill station by Koch, who was Monday in the western Indian city of Bombay and scheduled to leave for Germany on Tuesday.
New Delhi frowns on political contacts between the Dalai Lama and visiting dignitaries on Indian soil, as part of its efforts to keep relations with neighbouring China China on an even keel.
The Dalai Lama and thousands of his supporters fled their homeland for India in 1959 after China China crushed an anti-Beijing uprising in Tibet Tibet.
