World Tibet Network News Sunday, March 15, 1998

MOSCOW, March 13 (AFP) - A visit to Russia later this year by Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will be completely unofficial, a foreign ministry spokesman stressed on Friday, quoted by ITAR-TASS.

The spokesman added that the Dalai Lama had been invited to Russia by Buddhist communities in southern Siberia and Kalmykia. He said the visit, announced earlier this week, to take place in August and September, would concentrate solely on religious issues.

Underlining that the visit would not have any political element, the spokesman said the spiritual leader would not meet any Russian politicians.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since 1959, has already repeatedly visited Russia.

He left Tibet following the failed upraising on March 10, 1959, against Chinese domination of the Himalayan region.

In recent years, Russia and China have tightened their links.

At a summit in Beijing last November, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chinese Premier Li Peng, signed an agreement resolving a border dispute, as well as a contract on installing a 3,000 kilometre (1,860 miles) gas pipeline between Siberia and northeastern China.