Dalai Lama envoys in Beijing for first talks in nine years

Two envoys from the Dalai Lama are visiting Beijing in the first formal exchange between the sides in nine years, a spokesman for the exiled Tibetan leader said yesterday.

Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, with two assistants, also intended to visit Tibet's capital, Lhasa, the country's government-in-exile said in a statement, adding: "His Holiness the Dalai Lama is very pleased the team is able to make such a visit."

China has been moving to tone down the confrontation with the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after the failure of an uprising against Communist troops who occupied the Himalayan territory in 1951. China regards him as a political meddler seeking to separate Tibet from China. There have been only sporadic contacts since talks collapsed in 1993.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman referred to the envoys only as expatriate Tibetans and said their visit to China was seen as unofficial. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said America was cheered by the visit and saw it as a chance to foster mutual understanding. Kate Saunders, an analyst with the Tibet Information Network, called it "highly significant".

China has released six Tibetan political prisoners this year, including four "singing nuns," a group of women punished for recording pro-independence songs in prison. An older brother of the Dalai Lama, Gyalo Thondup, also visited Lhasa and the monastic centre of Shigatse this year.

The Dalai Lama, who received the 1989 Nobel peace prize for his peaceful campaign for Tibetan autonomy, has never returned to Tibet.