Dalai Lama's envoys leave
for talks with China
Indo-Asian
News Service
Dharamsala,
Oct 30 (IANS) Two envoys of Buddhist spiritual leader the
Dalai Lama Thursday left for Beijing for the eighth round
of negotiations with Chinese officials since talks began in
2002.
Besides
Kasur Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, the delegation
includes three senior assistants, said a statement of the
Tibetan government-in-exile that is based in this Himalayan
town.
"The
envoys will be in Beijing for about a week as a follow-up
to the seventh round of talks held in July this year,"
it said.
The
last formal talks between the envoys and the Chinese leadership,
the seventh since 2002, were not fruitful as officials there
were preoccupied with the Olympics.
The
Dalai Lama, who along with his supporters fled Tibet and took
refuge in India in 1959, has been following a "middle
path" policy that demands "greater autonomy"
for Tibetans, rather than complete independence.
But
over the weekend, the Nobel laureate said at a function in
this north Indian hill station that he had "lost hope
of reaching an agreement with the present Chinese leadership
over allowing more autonomy for the Buddhist region in Tibet
as there is no response from across the border regarding the
next round of negotiations".
The
Tibetan government-in-exile has also called a special six-day
session of exiles at McLeodganj near here from Nov 17 to discuss
the future of the Tibetan movement.
Gyari,
who participated in the last round of talks in China, had
said after returning to India that "in the course of
our discussion (seventh round), we were compelled to candidly
convey to our counterparts that in the absence of serious
and sincere commitment on their part, the continuation of
the present dialogue process would serve no purpose".
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