World Tibet Network News Thursday, Jul 02, 1998

BEIJING, July 2 (AFP) - China's foreign ministry indicated on Thursday that the Dalai Lama's latest offer to hold talks on the future of Tibet was nothing new. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader had said on Monday he was ready for "unconditional talks" with Beijing, adding that a decades-old demand for Tibet's independence had been dropped. But foreign ministry spokesman Tang Guoqiang said no new talks would star twith the Dalai Lama until he overtly stated that Tibet belongs to China. "Our policy on the Dalai Lama is clear and consistent and has never changed in the past," Tang told reporters at a regular briefing." As long as the Dalai Lama genuinely abandons his position on Tibetan independence, stops his activities to split the motherland, and publicly acknowledges that Tibet is an inalienable part of Chinese territory and the government of the PRC (People's Republic of China) is the only legal government to represent the whole of China, the central government is willingto hold talks with him.

"The comments were a reiteration of the government's previous conditions, and indicated no shift in policy had been made in response to the Dalai Lama's latest offer for talks. President Jiang Zemin raised eyebrows at a press conference on Saturday when he said that "several channels of communication" had been opened with the Dalai Lama. But later that day, hopes for discussions dimmed as China's foreign ministry issued a statement blaming the exiled leader for blocking talks. The Dalai Lama's insistence on independence for the Himalayan territory was splitting the "motherland" and making talks with him impossible, a foreign ministry spokesman said in Beijing.