SAN JOSE (AFP) — A Tibetan group said Friday that Costa Rica had asked it to postpone a visit by the Dalai Lama to the Central American country ahead of a trip there by Chinese Premier Hu Jintao in October.
The president of the Tibet-Costa Rica Cultural Association said President Oscar Arias had telephoned the group to ask it to withdraw its invitation to the Tibetan spiritual leader.
"Exactly what they said was that if the Dalai Lama comes to Costa Rica, Hu Jintao won't come, and that's not convenient for Costa Rica," Maritza Pacheco told journalists here.
The president's office declined to comment on the matter.
Arias said it would have been an insult to cancel the visit and that she had written to the Dalai Lama to ask him to postpone the visit to next year, to coincide with a Nobel Prize Winners' meeting in San Jose.
Arias said that the Dalai Lama's planned visit was private, and was to be financed by her organization.
Costa Rica and China signed some 50 million dollars of bilateral deals in May during a three-day visit by Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, the highest-level Chinese official ever to visit the country.
China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet, a Himalayan territory ruled for the last six decades by Beijing, and of fomenting unrest to sabotage the Olympic Games currently under way.
But the 73-year-old Nobel Peace prize winner insists he wants autonomy and religious freedom and not independence for Tibet.
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