WASHINGTON, April 11, 2008 (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged China on Friday to open its troubled region of Tibet up to journalists and diplomats.
“We have been very concerned about the closed nature of all of this, the lack of transparency,” Rice told reporters during a press conference in Washington with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“It’s important that journalists be able to get in, it’s important that diplomatic personnel be able to get into Tibet so that there can be independent reporting about what’s going on there,” she said.
“But I believe that China would really do itself a great service and not to mention the people of Tibet, if it were willing to have a more open attitude toward responsible Tibetan cultural and religious authorities,” she said.
Rice and other US officials have repeatedly urged China to act with restraint against protestors there and open a dialogue with Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Rice said on Wednesday that the State Department would like to set up a consulate in Tibet after complaining that China has so far allowed only limited access to US diplomats since troubles began in March.
Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the United States “has been very active in making the case to the Chinese that they are going to be better off to deal with moderate forces on Tibet like the Dalai Lama, that they should open a dialogue with him.”
She added that the United States “pressed for consular access for diplomats into Tibet. We got some limited access, but frankly it wasn’t good enough.”
Violence erupted in Tibet on March 14 after days of peaceful protests in Lhasa against 57 years of Chinese rule and quickly spilled over into other parts of China inhabited by Tibetans.
Exiled Tibetan leaders say 150 people have died in the Chinese crackdown on the demonstrations. China insists it has acted with restraint and killed no one, while blaming Tibetan “rioters” for the deaths of 20 people.
