Dalai Lama calls special meeting to discuss Tibet

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama waves at the end of a teaching conference in Nantes, western France, August 16, 2008. The Dalai Lama is in France from August 11 to 23.

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama has called a special meeting of Tibetan exiles in November or December to discuss political unrest in Tibet this year and the future of the Tibetan movement, officials said on Friday.

Karma Chophel, speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, told Reuters that officials would meet on Monday to discuss the details of the special session ordered by their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The special meeting, the opening session of which would be addressed by the Dalai Lama, would be attended by Tibetan leaders, intellectuals and non-government organizations chosen by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile.

"We have to discuss who are the other people to be called," Chophel said.

The meeting of Tibetans comes after months of anti-China protests across the world, sparked off by unrest in Tibet in March which was aggressively suppressed by China.

Beijing says followers of the Dalai Lama fomented riots and protests across the mountainous region in a bid to derail last month's Olympics Games. The Dalai Lama has rejected the charge.

Envoys of the Dalai Lama and China met in July to defuse the crisis, the latest in several rounds of talks since 2002 that many Tibetans, especially younger generations, describe as a Chinese ploy to delay progress on the question of either independence or regional autonomy for Tibet.

The next round of those talks could be held as early as October, two Chinese sources with knowledge of the slow-moving dialogue, told Reuters last week.

Many exiled Tibetans would like to go further than the conciliatory "middle way" approach of the Dalai Lama, who seeks autonomy.

Tibetan officials said the meeting would see wide-ranging discussions about the future of the Tibetan movement.

"He will advise and he will give guidelines ... he will put before the general body his ideas," Chophel said of the Dalai Lama.

(Reporting by Abhishek Madhukar; Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Paul Tait)