CALCUTTA(PTI): The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, on Oct3 expressed “firm” commitment to turn Tibet into a zone of peace and demand a solution to the Tibetan problem on the lines Of Israel Palestine accord.
Ensuring that Tibet, a buffer state between India and China, was a zone of peace “was in the interest of not only this region but the entire world,” he said at a seminar in this eastern Indian city.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel prize in 1989, described the “so-called autonomous status” accorded to Tibet as “meaningless” and said the recent accord between Israelis and Palestinians could be an example of a “middle path” for resolving the Tibetan problem.
At the seminar on “International Amity: Expanding the Hhorizon through Peace and Culture,’ he said decades of hatred, mutual mistrust and wars between the Israelis and the Palestinians had been oblierated by the “human approach in a spirit of reconciliation and in a nonviolent way.”
Appreciating the worldwide concem for Tibetans, he was optimistic that Tibetans and Chinese would adopt a “reasonable attitude” in finding a harmonious settlement of the Tibetan issue, “which should not be considered in isolation.”
The Dalai Lama said despite criticism, he allowed “many concessions” since 1979, based on the statements of former Chinese premier that anything but the independence of Tibet could be discussed.
Despite all promises, nothing has emerged, he added.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 8, 1993
