The Dalai Lama is willing to return to Tibet and end nearly half a century of exile in India if China allows him to go back to his homeland "without preconditions."
In an exclusive interview, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader said he was ready to return to the capital, Lhasa, which he fled in 1959, as soon as he got the "green light" from Beijing. He said China's government had stopped him visiting Tibet, most recently in 1984, and prevented him from traveling to sacred Buddhist sites inside China.
"I'm hopeful to visit Tibet, to see my old place with my own eyes, and try to cool down the situation," he added.
"You ask under what circumstances? China should give me the green light, without preconditions."
The Dalai Lama's offer follows a thaw between China and Tibet's exiled leadership, and came on the eve of his three-week trip to the US, which began Thursday. He is likely to discuss his possible return to Tibet with US President George W. Bush, whom he is to meet next week.
Speculation that the Dalai Lama is secretly preparing to make a deal with China has been growing since two of his envoys made a trip to Beijing last September. They visited China again in late May, in the first direct contact between both sides since 1993.
The visits, together with the release of several Tibetan political prisoners and government tours to Tibet for foreign journalists, including one last week, have prompted hopes of an end to Beijing's decades-long impasse with Tibet's exiled government.
The Dalai Lama said that negotiations with China had been "positive," and stressed that the only way of finding a solution to the Tibet problem was through dialogue.
But he said meaningful negotiations with China had not yet taken place, with Beijing unwilling to make any concessions.
"We have not yet started serious discussions," he said. "For the moment I believe it is very essential to develop confidence. This is the moment to try and build confidence and understanding."
In the meantime the situation in Tibet had not improved, he said. He also reiterated his demand for Tibet to be given a degree of self-rule, the so-called "middle way approach" he has pursued since the 1970s.
"Our position is not seeking independence for Tibet, but genuine autonomy, which the Chinese constitution mentions," he said.
The Dalai Lama fled from Tibet in 1959, after a failed uprising against China's occupation. Since then he has lived in Dharamsala, a hill station in northern India, where hundreds of Tibetan monks wearing maroon robes trek up and down the steep, potholed roads alongside foreign backpackers.
The Dalai Lama said there was "no point in guessing" why the Chinese had decided to talk to him now. But he said communist totalitarian systems had disappeared from most of the world over the past 15 years and that a "confused" China was in a state of flux while aggressively pursuing a Western capitalist model.
"I think the majority of communist party members don't have any genuine belief in communist ideology," he said. "They join the communist party simply for a job.
"In the 1950s when I was in China I found those party members were really dedicated. They were fully convinced of their ideology."
He added: "China is changing. Chinese intellectuals now begin to realize their policy regarding so-called minorities is not working. It's in China's own interest to be critical about the current policy. Therefore I'm very optimistic."
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