DHARAMSALA, September 7: The Task Force on Sino-Tibetan negotiations concluded its 26th session today. The Director of the Tibet Policy Institute and the spokesperson for the TFN, Thubten Samphel said the meeting reviewed the developments in Tibet and China and discussed the “overall grave situation in Tibet, including the self-immolations.”
“While the continuing repressive measures in the Tibetan areas have been counterproductive to China’s desire for unity and stability, the Task Force also analyzed substantive discourse in China– on ethnic issues in general and Tibet in particular — as well as some recent mixed signals,” said Samphel at a press briefing after the meeting concluded.
Though the meeting did not appoint new envoys of the Tibetan leader after Lodi Gyari and his aide Kelsang Gyaltsen resigned last year there was a hope from the Tibetan side to resume the stalled talks. Samphel said clear strategies were discussed on the way forward for the peaceful resolution of the Tibetan issue through dialogue between envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and representatives of the new Chinese leadership.
Samphel also conveyed Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay’s reiteration of “the Central Tibetan Administration’s firm commitment to the Middle Way Approach.”
The next Task Force meeting will be convened early next year.
The three-day meeting of the Tibetan task force on Negotiations began here on Thursday at the exile headquarters of Tibetan government with addition of six new faces. The six new members are former Kalon Tripa Professor Samdhong Rinpoche; Lobsang Nyandak, Executive Director of Tibet Fund and former Kalon; Tashi Phuntsok, Secretary of Department of Information and International Relations; Kunga Tashi, Chinese Liaison Officer at Office of Tibet, New York; Phagpa Tsering, Deputy Director of Tibet Policy Institute and Sonam Tsering Frasi, former Tibetan Parliamentarian from Europe.
Former ministers Tashi Wangdi and Tempa Tsering, who are members of the TFN, were not present at this meeting as the former has not been keeping well lately and the latter had official engagements as the Dalai Lama’s representative during the Tibetan leader’s visit to Delhi earlier today.
