China hopes Dalai Lama can 'return to right path', his team rejects preconditions

By Colleen Howe and Krishna N. Das

BEIJING/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - China hopes the Dalai Lama can "return to the right path," and is open to discussions about his future as long as certain conditions are met, Beijing said on Monday, a proposal rejected by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile in India.

The exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who turns 90 in July, fled Tibet in 1959 for India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule but has expressed a desire to return before he dies.

China is open to talks about the future of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as long as he abandons his position of splitting the "motherland," a foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, told a regular press conference.

Guo was responding to a request for comment on the death of the spiritual leader's elder brother Gyalo Thondup, who had previously acted as his unofficial envoy in talks with Chinese officials.

Gyalo Thondup died on Saturday, aged 97, in his home in the Indian town of Kalimpong.

The Dalai Lama needs to openly recognise that Tibet and Taiwan are inalienable parts of China, whose sole legal government is that of the People's Republic of China, Guo said, using the country's official name.

But the deputy speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, Dolma Tsering Teykhang, rejected the preconditions.

"It is not feasible for His Holiness to tell lies, that's not going to happen," she said from the Indian Himalayan town of Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama also lives.

"If they dictate that His Holiness should speak about Tibet being an inalienable part, that is a distortion of history. By distorting history, you cannot have a peaceful and amicable solution."

The Dalai Lama stepped down in 2011 as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which Beijing does not recognise. Official talks with his representatives have stalled since, but Teykhang said back-channel discussions were ongoing, declining to give details.

As the Dalai Lama ages, the question of his successor has also become increasingly urgent. China insists it will choose his successor.

But the Dalai Lama says he will clarify questions about the succession, such as if and where he will be reincarnated, in line with Tibetan Buddhist belief, around the time of his 90th birthday in July.

In a short meeting with Reuters in December, he said that he could live 110 years.

Teykhang, who was born in Tibet, said she was hopeful the Dalai Lama would be able to return home, led by efforts from people within China.

"I'm very hopeful that His Holiness will visit Tibet, and he will go to his Potala Palace," she said. "Very hopeful."

(Reporting by Colleen Howe and Ryan Woo; Editing by Tom Hogue, Clarence Fernandez and Sharon Singleton)