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China-Dalai Lama talks vital
22/03/2008 20:13 - (SA)
New Delhi - Tibet's government-in-exile on Saturday said talks with its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama were more crucial "than ever before" as Beijing vowed to crush anti-China forces in Tibet.
The comments came after the People's Daily, mouthpiece of China's Communist party, said earlier in the day that opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet must be smashed and turned its back on world calls for talks with the Buddhist icon.
"Talks are more necessary than ever before," Thubten Samphel, spokesperson for the exiled administration, which has its headquarters in northern India, told AFP.
"China has always pursued this hard line and very forceful military solutions to the problems in Tibet, and these have never worked," he said as the Dalai Lama was in New Delhi to conduct a week of Buddhist workshops.
The editorial in the People's Daily said "China must resolutely crush the conspiracy of sabotage and smash 'Tibet independence forces'," effectively spurning appeals from US, European and Asian leaders for talks.
It appeared a day after China launched a manhunt for monks and others it blamed for violence in Tibet - some of the worst-ever protests against Beijing's rule in the vast Himalayan region.
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