China to meet Dalai Lama aides amid Tibet tension
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese officials will meet representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism whom China blames for a wave of unrest, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday, citing official sources.
The move marks a change in tactics on the part of Beijing, which has stepped up its vilification of the Dalai Lama since anti-government protests hit Tibet and rippled across ethnic Tibetan parts of China in the past weeks.
"In view of the requests repeatedly made by the Dalai side for resuming talks, the relevant department of the central government will have contact and consultation with Dalai's private representative in the coming days," Xinhua quoted an official as saying.
A spokesman for the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, said he had not received any communication from China about a meeting and China's Foreign Ministry said it had no details.
China denounces the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Communist rule, as a traitor and has accused him of orchestrating the unrest, a charge the 72-year-old Nobel laureate denies.
But Tibet has become a flashpoint for anti-China protests that have dogged the Olympic torch relay around the world and has led to calls for state leaders to boycott the Beijing Games, which open on August 8.
"It is hoped that through contact and consultation, the Dalai side will take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games so as to create conditions for talks," the official was quoted as saying.
China has also been under pressure from abroad to resume dialogue with envoys of the Dalai Lama as a way of achieving stability in Tibet, a remote, mountain region which Communist troops entered in 1950.
The Olympic torch is supposed to enter Tibet in early May to ascend Mt Everest and is to travel to Tibet's capital Lhasa on June 19.
The Dalai Lama says he is seeking meaningful autonomy for the strategic border region, but China denounces that as a sham and says he is bent on splitting the country.
(Reporting by Lindsay Beck, additional reporting by Bappa Majumdar in New Delhi; Editing by Nick Macfie)
