LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he would meet the Dalai Lama, who is expected in London in May, a move swiftly welcomed by pro-Tibet activists but sternly challenged by Beijing.
The Chinese government said it was "seriously concerned" at Brown's announcement, the official Xinhua news agency reported, threatening to cool the warm relations the prime minister established on a recent trip there.
"As we have repeatedly pointed out, Dalai is a political refugee engaged in activities of splitting China under the camouflage of religion," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying.
But the Dalai Lama's representative in Britain, Tsering Tashin, told Channel 4 News: "This is the standard official Chinese statement. If anything happens they make this sort of statement."
"The most important thing for China is to recognise that there is a real problem inside Tibet."
Brown's confirmation came after he spoke by telephone to Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and pressed him to end violence in Tibet, which has triggered a swift clampdown by Chinese authorities.
The Chinese premier had assured him he was willing to hold talks with the Dalai Lama under two conditions, he added.
"I made it absolutely clear that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet... I called for an end to the violence by dialogue between the different parties," he told parliament during his weekly question period.
"The premier told me that, subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said -- that he does not support the total independence of Tibet, and that he renounces violence -- that he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama."
"I will meet the Dalai Lama when he is in London," he added.
A spokesman for Brown's office could not say when the Dalai Lama might be coming, but the Tibetan leader is due to be in London on May 22 for an event at the Royal Albert Hall, a spokeswoman from the Tibet Society UK said.
The talks would be the Dalai Lama's first with Brown since the prime minister took office last June. His predecessor Tony Blair was criticised when he declined to meet the Dalai Lama in 2004.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel triggered a deep freeze in relations between Berlin and Beijing for several months after she met the exiled Tibetan leader in her chancellery offices in September last year.
Tibetan campaigners, including Matt Whitticase of the Free Tibet movement, welcomed Brown's announcement.
"We welcome the fact he will see him, although we do want to assess the substance of the meeting and whether it is going to take place in a public place, like any other leader of a recognised country," he said.
Tibetan Drol Kar, an exiled former prisoner, added: "It's really good news for Tibet... But we would like Gordon Brown not just to meet the Dalai Lama, but also to put pressure on China to stop the oppression in Tibet."
Brown said the overriding aim was to curtail the violence.
"The most important thing at the moment is to bring about an end to the violence, reconciliation, and to see legitimate talks taking place between those peoples in China," he said.
An aide of the Dalai Lama said Wednesday that he wants talks between his government-in-exile and China to resume and is committed to a non-violent settlement of the Tibet issue.
Tibet's government-in-exile has put the "confirmed" death toll from a week of unrest at 99, while the exiled Tibetan parliament in Dharamshala has said "hundreds" may have died in the Chinese crackdown.
China, however, has denied using deadly force to quell the unrest and said the only deaths so far were 13 "innocent civilians" killed by rioters in Lhasa on Friday, while 325 people were injured.
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