China reacts coolly to Dalai's Olympic suggestion

BEIJING (Reuters) - China reacted coolly on Thursday to a suggestion from the Dalai Lama that he would be happy to attend the Beijing Olympics, and suggested talks with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader's envoys may be delayed by the Sichuan earthquake.

The Dalai Lama said during a visit to London he would like to go if invited to the August 8-24 Games but would attend only if talks with China helped improve the situation in Tibet.

Envoys of the Himalayan region's spiritual and political leader met Chinese officials in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on May 4 to discuss the recent unrest in Tibet.

The Dalai Lama said the next formal round of talks would be in the second week of June -- the seventh round of dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys since 2002.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang said that the Dalai Lama still needed to show sincerity.

"I have heard what the Dalai said," Qin told a regular news conference in Beijing.

"But as far as we're concerned, if the Dalai really wants to do something positive for the motherland and for the Olympics, he must take concrete actions, really stop activities to split the motherland, stop plotting and whipping up violence, and stop activities to damage the Olympics," he added.

"As for the next round of talks, the date is still being worked out. As you know under the present conditions, every department is working as hard as possible on earthquake relief," Qin said.

China has repeatedly blamed the Dalai Lama for a deadly March 14 riot in regional capital Lhasa and for subsequent protests in Tibetan areas of China, which took control over the mountain region in the 1950s.

The Tibetan spiritual leader has rejected the accusations and said that he supports the Beijing Games.

The Tibetan unrest, the most serious challenge to Chinese rule in the region for nearly two decades, prompted anti-China protests that disrupted the international leg of the torch relay and led to calls for Western leaders to boycott the Games.

Still, envoys for the Dalai Lama visited the Chinese Embassy in London to express their condolences for the May 12 earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where the death toll has now surpassed 50,000.

"On May 21, the Dalai Lama's private representatives went to the Chinese embassy in Britain to offer their condolences for the victims of the Wenchuan earthquake," the embassy said in a brief statement on its website (uk.china-embassy.org/chn).

"Before that, the Dalai's side said they would like to offer condolences at the Chinese Embassy in Britain, and the embassy made the aforementioned arrangements," it added.

The Dalai Lama had strong praise for China's relief effort and called the government's handling of it "transparent" and "wonderful".

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Benjamin Kang Lim and Valerie Lee)