US Tibet envoy in Dharamsala to meet Dalai Lama

Dharamsala/New Delhi, May 18

In another step that indicates a rolling back of India’s policy of going soft on Tibetan issues in order not to antagonise Beijing, senior US diplomat and US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Uzra Zeya arrived in Dharamsala on Wednesday for a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

This will be the first meeting between the US Special Coordinator and the Dalai Lama in India after six years and follows a virtual address by the revered Buddhist monk at a conference on Budh Purnima organised by the Ministry of Culture, which was also addressed by three union ministers.

Zeya was given a rousing welcome when she arrived at the Secretariat of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala. “A high-level visitation from the US signifies the latter’s momentous support for the Tibetan issue,” said a CTA statement.

The Special Coordinator’s visit comes shortly after the successful visit to Washington last month by Sikyong (President) Penpa Tsering of the CTA where the latter met with the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other bipartisan members of Congress, besides officials at the State Department.

Hours after the news of the meeting went viral, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian had said the “Tibetan government-in-exile is a separatist political organization with the agenda of pursuing Tibetan independence.”