Dalai Lama envoy asks China to suggest way forward: Report

Dalai Lama envoy asks China to suggest way forward: Report
Phayul[Thursday, April 09, 2009 12:44]

A supporter of Tibet stands with a portrait of Dalai Lama during a demonstration in St.Petersburg in this May 3,Dharamsala, April 9: China must suggest ways to break a deadlock in talks on Tibet or the Dalai Lama's representatives will assume Beijing is not interested in a negotiated solution, Reuters reported an envoy of the exiled Tibetan leader as saying on Wednesday.

The last round of talks between China and envoys of the Dalai Lama failed in November when Beijing rejected their calls for \"high-level autonomy\" for Tibet.

Premier Wen Jiabao said last month that China was open to more talks as long as the Dalai Lama renounced what Beijing describes as separatism.

Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama's representative to Europe, said the Tibetan side had already put their proposals on the table at the last meeting in the form of a memorandum that Beijing rejected.

\"If there is any seriousness and political will on the part of the Chinese government, the ball is now in their court,\" the report quoted Kelsang Gyaltsen, who took part in the negotiations with China, as telling reporters during a visit to London.

\"They have now either to come up with their own suggestions for a way forward or we have to assume that the Chinese government is not interested in ... finding a mutually acceptable solution through dialogue with the Tibetans,\" he said.

However, he reportedly said the Dalai Lama's envoys had not yet reached this conclusion. \"The time (since November) is too short. Let's see,\" he said.

He also urged European governments to take a common position on Tibet that was \"clear and strong\".

Gyaltsen said China's increasing influence in the world made the Tibet issue more, rather than less, important.

\"It's important to the Chinese government what the outside world thinks about China. So ... today's members of the international community have more leverage to influence ... the Chinese leadership than 20 years back,\" he said.

Because of Tibet's potential for social instability, foreign governments interested in China's peaceful development also had an interest in the Tibet issue being solved, he said.

Peaceful protests by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule in March last year escalated into massive anti-China unrest across Tibet. Tibetan exiles say more than 200 people died in the crackdown. The unrest is described by many as the largest uprising since the Tibetan National Uprising of 1959 which was brutally crushed down by Chinese military force.

China sent military troops to occupy Tibet in late 1949 and the Dalai Lama fled the mountainous region in 1959 after the failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Meeting in Dharamsala, India, last November, Tibetan exiles reaffirmed their commitment to the Dalai Lama's \"Middle Way\" approach that seeks “real and meaningful” autonomy within the constitutional framework of PRC instead of outright independence for Tibet.

The Dalai Lama recently said China lacks sincerity in the talks. The 73 year old Tibetan leader said he was losing his trust in the Chinese government but maintained that his faith in the Chinese people remains unshaken.