Home > News Archive > Dalai Lama envoys to resume talks with Chinese leaders

Dalai Lama envoys to resume talks with Chinese leaders

By Lobsang Wangyal | Tibet Sun

Two envoys of the Dalai Lama Lodi Gyari, right, and Kelsang Gyaltsen addressing a press conference in Dharamshala on 16 November 2008. The two envoys will resume talks on Tibet with Chinese leaders on Tuesday after an impasse of 15 months.File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

Two envoys of the Dalai Lama have left for China to resume talks on Tibet after an impasse of 15 months, a statement of the Tibetan government-in-exile said on Monday.

The envoys, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, will be accompanied by senior assistants Tenzin P Atisha, Bhuchung K Tsering, both members of Tibetan Task Force on Negotiations, and Jigmey Passang from the Secretariat of the Tibetan Task Force, the statement said.

The two sides have held eight rounds of talks since 2002, but have stalled in November 2008. China said the door would remain open for future discussions but the Tibetan side accused China of “insincerity” and “lack of willingness to seriously reciprocate the sincere and serious efforts of the Dalai Lama.”

The delegation is expected to return to India by the beginning of February.

The envoys’ visit come days after Beijing held a high level meeting on Tibet from 18 to 20 January. The meeting pledged to “leap-frog” the development of Tibet by greatly improving living standards of the people in Tibet through more government investment and better management, bringing the per capita net income close to the national level by 2020.

The Dalai Lama is seeking “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet, but China accuses the exiled leader of trying to split Tibet from China.

Anti-China protests that turned violent gripped the whole of the Tibetan plateau in March 2008 on the 49th anniversary of the failed uprising, and the region has since been tightly controlled.

Copyright © 2010 Tibet Sun

Published in Tibet Sun