Representatives of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will revive talks with China today on the thorny issue of the Himalayan region after a 15-month impasse, his office said.
The last round of talks collapsed with Beijing saying no progress had been made and insisting it would not compromise on the status of Tibet as an integral part of China.
“We are meeting the Chinese and this is an important process of trying to find a mutually agreed solution,” the Dalai Lama’s spokesman Tenzin Taklha said yesterday, referring to the dispute over Tibet’s autonomy.
“The agenda of his holiness the Dalai Lama is the same: that the problem has to be solved only through dialogue,” he said.
Taklha added that the venue for the meetings had not been confirmed, but said the envoys would return to India by the beginning of next month.
After their last interaction in November 2008, China said the door would remain open for future discussions but that “serious divergences” remained.
Lodi G. Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen will again lead what will be the ninth round of talks, said officials in Dharamshala, the Indian hill town where the Dalai Lama has lived for five decades and where many Tibetan exiles are based.
Last March China said it was open to reviving the dialogue but repeated demands that the Tibetan leader renounce “separatist” activities, which he already denies supporting.
The Dalai Lama has sought “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet since he fled his homeland following a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the region.
China says the Dalai Lama actually seeks full independence.
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