Brown to meet Dalai Lama
20/03/2008 07:25  - (SA)  

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London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he will meet the Dalai Lama, who is expected in London in May, a move swiftly welcomed by pro-Tibet activists but sternly challenged by Beijing.

The Chinese government said it was "seriously concerned" at Brown's announcement, the official Xinhua news agency reported, threatening to cool the warm relations the prime minister established on a recent trip there.

"As we have repeatedly pointed out, Dalai is a political refugee engaged in activities of splitting China under the camouflage of religion," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang was quoted as saying.

But the Dalai Lama's representative in Britain, Tsering Tashin, told Channel 4 News: "This is the standard official Chinese statement. If anything happens they make this sort of statement."

"The most important thing for China is to recognise that there is a real problem inside Tibet."

Talks with Chinese premier

Brown's confirmation came after he spoke by telephone to Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and pressed him to end violence in Tibet, which has triggered a swift clampdown by Chinese authorities.

The Chinese premier had assured him he was willing to hold talks with the Dalai Lama under two conditions, he added.

"I made it absolutely clear that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet... I called for an end to the violence by dialogue between the different parties," he told Parliament during his weekly question period.

"The premier told me that, subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said - that he does not support the total independence of Tibet, and that he renounces violence - that he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama."

"I will meet the Dalai Lama when he is in London," he added.

The talks would be the Dalai Lama's first with Brown since the prime minister took office last June. His predecessor Tony Blair was criticised when he declined to meet the Dalai Lama in 2004.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel triggered a deep freeze in relations between Berlin and Beijing for several months after she met the exiled Tibetan leader in her chancellery offices in September last year.

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