Dharamsala, March 23 – The Tibetan Task Force for negotiations began a three – day meeting here today. The body comprising of Tibetan ministers, Dalai Lama’s envoys and government officials was formed in 1999 to assist the process of dialogue with the Chinese government. The three-day meeting will conclude on 25 March.
This is the 21st meeting of the Task Force and first after talks between Dharamsala and Beijing resumed after almost fifteen months’ standoff. The two sides had met at nine round of talks, the last one being in January 2010.
Talks between Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing resumed in January 2010 after it had come to a standstill with the “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People” submitted by the Tibetan side at the eighth round of talks meeting with derision from China which called it a demand for ‘half-independence’ and ‘disguised independence’ or ‘covert independence’.”
Tibetan side, however, maintains that the articles of the proposed memorandum were prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the PRC and its laws on National Regional Autonomy, and claims China has rejected the proposal without providing any “legal and rational explanations”.
“We have reached a stage where to concede for anything less than that would be totally irrational on our part,” the Tibetan Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche said, referring to the contents of the “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People”.
“We have already made all necessary and possible compromise that could have been made, and there is nothing left to concede any further,” Rinpoche told a gathering of Tibetan parliamentarians and leaders, including former ministers, on the sidelines of the recently concluded ninth session of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.
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.
