BEIJING, Nov 12 (Reuter) - After summoning senior Tibetan Buddhist monks to Beijing to identify the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, China has denounced the search team for colluding with the exiled god-king Dalai Lama.

Without naming names, the November 4 edition of the Tibet Daily denounced lamas at the Tashilhunpo, the Panchen Lama's home monastery which is conducting the search, for colluding with the Dalai Lama, the region's god-king. Tashilhunpo lamas had opposed the final step of the ancient and rigorous system of tests in which candidates must draw lots from a golden urn, the newspaper said.

One week after being asked by the Chinese government to come up with a list of candidates, the lamas insisted there was only one candidate and incited other lamas to oppose Beijing, the newspaper said.

Last May, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, announced his recognition of the sole candidate, a six-year-old Tibetan boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the recipient of the spirit of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989.

The Panchen Lama is Tibet's second holiest lama, after the Dalai Lama.

The move enraged China, which maintains it has final say over the appointment of senior lamas, including the Dalai and Panchen lamas, under terms of a 1792 Qing dynasty agreement. Beijing has regularly accused the Dalai Lama of trying to split China and of fomenting an independence movement in the region since he fled into exile after an abortive uprising in 1959.

The newspaper said Tashilunpo lamas wrote to the Dalai Lama and provided him with the names, pictures and backgrounds of more than 20 candidates. The head of the search team, Chadrel Rinpoche, was formally removed in September as leader of the committee that runs the Tashilhunpo monastery in the Tibetan town of Xigaze. Chadrel Rinpoche has vanished, apparently into state custody. Tibetologists say he was detained in the southwestern city of Chengdu last May.

The defence of the China-sanctioned search came as about 75 of Tibet's most senior lamas were gathered in Beijing for final rites to identify the 11th reincarnation of their second holiest lama from three final candidates, Chinese sources said. The child recognised by the Dalai Lama has been eliminated, they said.

But many of the lamas at the meeting, although hand-picked by Beijing, have urged Chinese officials to reinstate Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as a Panchen Lama candidate, supporters of the Dalai Lama said in a report issued in London.

The lamas were called on Friday to meet President and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, the report said.

The newspaper defended the government's insistence on the final step in the selection process. According to rules governing the search for a "soul boy," even if there was only one candidate, the candidate must be drawn from a golden urn, the Tibet Daily said.

Tibetan Buddhists, believing that a late lama's soul migrates to a boy born near the time of his death, must identify this "soul boy" through ancient and rigorous tests. If the candidate fails the final test, the search would continue, the newspaper said.

However, the 10th Panchen Lama once said that any search for the Panchen Lama needed recognition by the Dalai Lama.