By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, March 18: Prime Minister of Tibet’s government in exile Prof Samdhong Rinpoche Thursday said there was no scope left for further compromise in its dealing with China on the issue of Tibet.
“We have already made all necessary and possible compromise that could have been made, and there is nothing left to concede any further,” Rinpoche said, referring to the content of the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People presented to the Chinese leadership.
“We have reached a stage where to concede for anything less than that would be totally irrational on our part,” Rinpoche said.
“So there is no question of making further compromise when there is no further scope left at all,” he added.
Rinpoche also stressed that there cannot be any compromise on the demand that “all Tibetan people should be under one single administration.”
“Our single agenda has been to seek genuine or meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people under a single administration within the framework of the People Republic of China,” the Tibetan PM said.
“And this remains an uncompromising factor in our talks with the Chinese side,” he added.
The Tibetan PM was speaking to an assembly of Tibetan parliamentarians and leaders, including former ministers, on the sidelines of the ongoing ninth session of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.
The meeting was convened based on the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s statement dated March 8, 2010, and issued to the ongoing Tibetan parliamentary session on March 9.
The statement called for a comprehensive discussion to clear all confusions and doubts arising in a section of the exile Tibetan community, and even raised by certain members of the parliament, questioning the validity of the Memorandum and the Note on the Memorandum that was submitted to the Chinese leadership during the eighth and ninth round of talks held in October/November 2008 and January 2010 respectively.
In the statement, the Tibetan leader has said that the two documents were arranged after acting sincerely on the unconditional responsibility entrusted to him by the unanimous resolutions passed by the Tibetan parliament from time to time.
The meeting will resume again tomorrow from 10:30am onwards.
The ninth session of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile opened here on March 8 mainly focused on the budget session of the exile Tibetan government.
The 11-day session, which is expected to go on till March 20, is the last budget session of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.
