NEW DELHI (AFP) — The Dalai Lama returned Saturday to India as the exile Tibet government told China to stop attacking the spiritual leader following Beijing's offer to hold talks to defuse the Tibetan issue.
The spiritual icon arrived in the Indian capital from a two-week US trip where he sought Washington's help in improving the situation in his homeland and met followers.
He was due to fly to the hill station of Dharamshala, where his exile government is based, later in the day, officials said.
"He is back in New Delhi" and would travel on to Dharamshala later on Saturday, an official of his office said.
The office declined to give exact details of the 72-year-old's itinerary but said he had no public engagements planned in Dharamshala where he has lived since fleeing Tibet following a failed uprising there against Beijing in 1959.
His return came after China's official Xinhua news agency said on Friday government officials would meet "in coming days" with one of his envoys.
The announcement drew praise from the United States and around the world amid hope it could lead to a solution to the recent Tibetan unrest.
But on Saturday, China's media kept up its attacks on the Dalai Lama with the state press accusing him of destabilising the Himalayan region.
"The vilification of His Holiness must be stopped by the Chinese authorities because these attacks hurt the sentiments of Tibetan people very deeply," exile Tibet government spokesman Thubten Samphel told AFP.
The continuation of the vilification was "unnecessarily provocative," Samphel said by telephone from Dharamshala.
"Instead of defusing the situation, it is making it more tense," he said. "This attempt to demonise His Holiness will not work."
The Chinese "must stop this campaign, they must stop repression (in Tibet) and they must tackle the real causes" of the unrest in Tibet.
China's People's Daily on Saturday reported only briefly Beijing's talks offer as it published scathing articles on the Dalai Lama, one of which denounced him as "the chief ringleader of activities to sabotage the normal religious order of Tibet."
On Friday, the Dalai Lama welcomed China's offer to meet his envoy for talks after weeks of protests over Tibet and repeated calls from the exiled spiritual leader for dialogue with Beijing.
The Dalai Lama's spokesman Tenzin Talka described the offer as "a step in the right direction" and said "only face-to-face meetings can lead to a resolution of the Tibetan issue."
But in a later statement the exile government said on Friday it would "require normalcy in the situation in the Tibetan areas for the formal resumption of the talks."
It added it was committed "to take all steps, including informal meetings, to continue in bringing about this."
Violent rioting against Chinese rule erupted in the regional capital Lhasa on March 14, and quickly spread across huge areas of the Tibetan plateau, casting a shadow over the Beijing Olympics in August.
China had hoped the Games would be symbolic of its rising status but instead they have has become a target for critics of Beijing's rule over Tibet and its human rights record.
Anand Ojha, a political analyst at Delhi University, said the talks invitation may prove hollow.
"Who says China has blinked? It's Chinese chequers as this invitation takes out the wind from the Tibetans' campaign of protests ahead of the Olympics which was a becoming a matter of huge concern for China," he said.
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