{"id":9654,"date":"2011-07-16T01:07:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-16T01:07:52","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-07-16T01:07:52","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T01:07:52","slug":"Obama--concerned--on-Tibet-in-Dalai-Lama-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=9654","title":{"rendered":"Obama “concerned” on Tibet in Dalai Lama talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Barack Obama defied warnings from China and welcomed to the White House the Dalai Lama<\/strong>, who said that the US leader shared his concerns about human rights in Tibet.<\/p>\n

The White House choreographed the Dalai Lama’s visit to be as low key as possible<\/strong>, barring the press and not announcing the meeting until hours before the Tibetan spiritual leader was set to close an 11-day trip to Washington.<\/p>\n

A White House official said that the two Nobel Peace Prize winners spoke for 44 minutes in the Map Room<\/strong>, part of the White House’s residence and away from the Oval Office where presidents traditionally meet world leaders.<\/p>\n

The Dalai Lama said that he felt close to Obama at a “human level” and that the US leader shared his concerns about the situation in Tibet<\/strong>, which the Buddhist leader fled in 1959 for safety in India.<\/p>\n

Obama is “president of the greatest democratic country, so naturally he is showing concern about basic human values, human rights, religious freedom,”<\/strong> the Dalai Lama said after the meeting in response to a question from AFP.<\/p>\n

The White House, in a statement announcing the meeting, also highlighted concerns about human rights and said Obama supported dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

China had warned the United States not to receive the Dalai Lama and lodged an official protest after the meeting was announced<\/strong>, warning that Obama “could harm US-Chinese relations” if he went ahead.<\/p>\n

Obama’s long silence on whether he would meet the Dalai Lama <\/strong>led several lawmakers to conclude that he rejected a meeting.<\/p>\n

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, welcomed Obama’s decision “to extend to the Dalai Lama the respect and courtesy he deserves as a globally respected leader.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This meeting is better late than never, but it remains disappointing that the Dalai Lama was squeezed in at the last minute after much apparent hemming-and-hawing from the White House due to objections from Beijing,” she said.<\/p>\n

“This shouldn’t have been such a difficult decision,” said Ros-Lehtinen, a member of the rival Republican Party.<\/p>\n

The State Department in its latest annual report described “severe cultural and religious repression” in Tibet along with China’s<\/strong> predominantly Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

Source AFP<\/em>
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