Dalai Lama says exiles must press China talks

DHARMSALA, India — Years of negotiations with Beijing have achieved little for the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama said Friday, though he insisted that talks still needed to press ahead and that the Chinese leadership could — eventually — soften its stand on Tibet.

In an hour-long interview with The Associated Press, the Buddhist leader criticized Beijing for its policies in his Himalayan homeland while he held out the possibility that some type of accord could be reached.

"So far, dialogue failed, but that does not mean in future no possibility," the Dalai Lama said in his private compound in this Indian hill town where he has lived since fleeing Tibet more than five decades ago. While admitting he was deeply frustrated by the lack of progress during nine rounds of talks, he also said there were clear signs of progress in Beijing. "They are realistic," he said of the Chinese leadership. "They have the ability to act according to a new reality."

Among his reasons for hope: increasing sympathy for the Tibetan cause among Chinese intellectuals, the power of technology to bring news out of Tibet and vague signs from Beijing that some Chinese leaders might be ready to soften their stand on Tibet.

Some of the Beijing leadership believes that "policy regarding Tibet now should be more openly, more peacefully. I heard that," he said in his sometimes tangled English. "True or not? We'll have to wait."

And patience, he added, is something Tibetans understand.

It has been 51 years since he fled his homeland. "Another 10, 20 years we can wait," he said, breaking into laughter.

Talks between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys resumed in January for the first time in 15 months but made no apparent progress on the Tibetans' demands for more autonomy. Beijing refused to even talk about granting Tibet more latitude, limiting discussions to the future of the exiled spiritual leader.

As to his future, the 74-year-old Dalai Lama said some Chinese leaders were simply waiting for him to die, hoping the Tibet issue would fizzle once he is gone. In Tibetan Buddhism, each Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of his predecessor. Because of this, turmoil often surrounds the death of a Dalai Lama as religious elders look for mystical signs that point them to the next reincarnation.

The man demonized by Beijing, though, insists he is nowhere near death.