Dharamsala, May 7: His Holiness the Dalai Lama Friday said that the Tibetan exile movement must press forward with its talks with the Chinese government despite years of negotiations that have resulted in almost no progress.
The 74-year old Tibetan leader was speaking to The Associated Press from his compound in the Indian hill town of Dharmsala, where he has lived since fleeing Tibet more than five decades ago..
The Dalai Lama warned that it could be decades before any benefits of such talks with China are obvious.
“So far, dialogue failed, but that does not mean in future no possibility,” the Dalai Lama said.
He said that increasing sympathy for the Tibetan cause among Chinese intellectuals indicates that Beijing’s policies could change. He also said there had been vague signs from Beijing that some of the top Chinese leadership might be ready to moderate its stand on Tibet.
Some Chinese leaders now believe that “policy regarding Tibet now should be more openly, more peacefully. I heard that. True or not? We’ll have to wait.”
Waiting, he added, is something the Tibetans understand.
“We wait 51 years, now another 10, 20 years we can wait,” he said, breaking into laughter.
The Dalai Lama has said he hopes talks will bring some form of autonomy for Tibet within China that would allow the Tibetan way of life to thrive. But Beijing frequently demonizes the Nobel Peace laureate and accuses him of being a “separatist”.
Talks between China and the Tibetan envoys resumed in January for the first time in 15 months but made no apparent progress on the Tibetans’ proposal for meaningful autonomy in the region.
It was the ninth round of talks between Beijing and Dharamsala since 2002.
The Prime Minister of Tibetan Government-in-Exile Prof Samdhong Rinpoche recently 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 contents of its Memorandum and Note on the Memorandum presented to the Chinese leadership.
Rinpoche had earlier said that the Tibetan leadership was committed to resume talks with Beijing on the basis of the “memorandum”.
