TAIPEI, Jan 13 (QAFP) - The Dalai Lama has accepted an invitation from a Buddhist organization here to visit Taiwan in March, organization officials said Monday, in a move that is certain to anger China.

"We have extended our invitation to the Dalai Lama, and he is expected to visit here in March for about ten days," Ching Hsin, chairman of the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China, said in a press briefing.

He said the Tibetan spiritual leader will not meet any political leaders in Taiwan during his stay, but will only promote Tibetan Buddhism here, giving several public lectures.

Organization officials said such an arrangement was aimed at diffusing the expected backlash from China, which has warned Taiwan against allowing the Tibetan exile spritual leader to visit the nationalist island.

They said the Dalai Lama will first send his aide to Taiwan for the necessary preparation.

The Presidential Office here and the Tibetan and Mongolian Affairs Commission said they had no idea when the Dalai Lama would visit Taiwan, and if he came as a religious leader, there was no way they could obstruct any religious activities to be carried out here.

The government here has said that it would welcome his visit as a religious leader.

Pro-independence supporters here have long expressed the hope of a visit by Dalai Lama, which they say would boost their cause.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

He has never visited Taiwan, which Beijing has viewed as a renegade province since the end of a civil war in 1949.

Beijing is strongly opposed to both Taiwanese and Tibetan independence.

Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang stressed that the Dalai Lama's invitation by a Buddhist organization in Taiwan rather than the government would not make his visit any less objectionable.

"I would like to remind the Taiwan authorities that the Dalai Lama is not simple a religious person, but a separatist who carries his separatist message on the international scene under the guise of religion," Shen said.