New Delhi/Beijing – Envoys of the exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama and Chinese officials began talks Sunday on the current crisis in Tibet, officials said. The talks, which are the first between the two sides since anti- China protests erupted in Tibet in March, were planned for at least the next two days, Tenzin Taklha, spokesman of the Dalai Lama said.
“We can confirm that the talks began in Shenzhen on Sunday morning. The discussions are planned for the next two to three days,” Taklha said from the north Indian hill-town of Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan government-in-exile are based.
“We are not giving out any information about the talks until Special Envoy Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen return and report the details of the talks to His Holiness Dalai Lama,” Taklha said.
He added that the envoys were expected to return to India by Wednesday.
Ahead of the talks, Chinese President Hu Jintao said he hoped “the contacts will yield a positive outcome.” Hu was speaking to Japanese reporters in Beijing, according to Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
He also hoped that the Dalai Lama and his followers would “show through action” that they had “stopped separatist activities” and “agitation and violence” to create conditions for further dialogue.
Meanwhile, the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala has expressed guarded optimism over the Shenzhen talks saying their main concern was to end the crisis and repression of Tibetans in Tibet.
An earlier statement by the Dalai Lama’s office had said envoys would take up the “urgent issue of the current crisis in the Tibetan areas” after the anti-China unrest there since March 14.
“They will convey His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s deep concerns about the Chinese authorities’ handling of the situation and also provide suggestions to bring peace to the region,” the statement said.
The violence in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited regions in neighbouring provinces left 19 people dead, according to the Chinese government. However, the Tibetan government-in-exile said 203 people have been killed, most of them Tibetans shot by Chinese police.
On Friday last week, China had announced it would take up a dialogue with representatives of Tibet’s spiritual leader and said it was ready to talk about everything except sovereignty over Tibet.
But even after Beijing said it was reopening talks, the Chinese media have continued to attack the Dalai Lama saying he was the “master of rhetoric” and his attempt to “split the motherland” – Tibet from China – was “doomed to failure.”
The Tibetan spiritual leader was once more branded a “criminal” by Xizang Ribao newspaper, which accused the “Dalai clique” of urging Tibetans to take part in the protests.
Since 2002 the Chinese government has engaged in six rounds of dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, however no progress was reported. The last round was held in June 2007.
