TAIPEI, May 5 (Reuter) - Taiwan, which still claims sovereignty over Tibet, would welcome a visit by the Dalai Lama as a religious leader, local newspapers reported on Sunday.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, exchanged letters with President Lee Teng-hui and expressed his interest in visiting the island, the mass circulation China Times newspaper quoted Lee Hou-kao, chairman of the cabinet's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, as telling lawmakers on Saturday.

Lee, who won a landslide victory in the island's presidential elections on March 23, told the Dalai Lama that the government would invite him at an appropriate time.

Both Taipei and Beijing, rivals since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, claim sovereignty over Tibet. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province and threatens to retake the island by force if it opts for independence.