Angela Merkel: China should resume dialogue with Dalai Lama
German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue of Tibet with visiting Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao as he stopped over in Berlin on his European tour that excludes France.
Merkel urged Wen Jiabao to restart talks with the envoys of the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama. “Germany has an intense interest in the talks with the Dalai Lama resuming,” Merkel told reporters after meeting Wen.
Around 60 demonstrators were watching from distance amid tight security as the Chinese leader was welcomed with military honours at the German Chancellery.
She said Germany was willing to make a “constructive contribution” on the matter, adding that Germany did not question the one-China policy. "If there is anything Germany can do in this regard, we would like to help," she added.
“We talked about the situation in Tibet and from the German side, I emphasised that we have a common interest that talks with the Dalai Lama get under way,” said Merkel at a joint news conference with Wen.
The issue of Tibet had earlier escalated tensions between the two countries in 2007 when Merkel met the Dalai Lama who is viewed by Beijing as a ’splittist’ and a ‘wolf in a monk’s robe’. She was the first German chancellor to receive the Dalai Lama at the Chancellery. It took months for Beijing to forgive Merkel.
Now China is at loggerheads with France over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with the Dalai Lama in Poland last month. China cancelled an EU summit when French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who then held the EU presidency, announced his scheduled meeting with the Dalai Lama in Poland and met him eventually.
The talks between Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing came to a standstill after the eighth round of talks in October last year failed to produce any results. The exile Tibetan Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche said the Sino-Tibetan dialogue has failed to produce any positive changes in China’s Tibet policy.
“Therefore, the entire responsibility for the future status of our dialogues, irrespective of what it is going to be, lies squarely on the Chinese leaders,” he said last month.
China insists doors for talks are still open but categorically rejected a "Memorandum” on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People submitted by the Tibetan envoys during the eighth round of talks calling it an "agenda of independence".
Source: www.phayul.com
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our 
RSS feed
or 
Twitter feed!
October 7, 2009 2:31 pm
