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British ministers ‘banned from meeting Dalai Lama’

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A British Government' photo showing Prime Minister David Cameron (centre) and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (right) meeting the Dalai Lama during his visit to London on May 14, 2012. Photo: EPA

The British government blocked two ministers from meeting the Dalai Lama during a visit here this summer, prompting them to accuse London of bowing to pressure from Beijing, it emerged Monday.

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Tim Loughton and Norman Baker, who both have long-standing ties to Tibet, were stopped from attending a private lunch in June with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the London apartment of House of Commons speaker John Bercow.

In a letter in July to Prime Minister David Cameron, revealed by Channel 4’s “Dispatches” programme, the pair expressed their “concern and annoyance with regard to the inflexible instruction given last week to ministers, prohibiting any contact whatsoever with the Dalai Lama during his visit to the UK”.

They said a note from the Foreign Office warning of the sensitivities surrounding Tibet and China did not justify a “blanket prohibition on a minister meeting a religious leader in private in a non-ministerial capacity, and we think this crossed a line”.

“The note is tantamount to saying that British foreign policy on Tibet is whatever China wants it to be,” they wrote. “It completely ignores the fact that His Holiness is a spiritual leader only, and no longer holds a political position, and is frankly just plain wrong.”

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They said they were put under “tremendous pressure” not to attend the lunch from Cameron’s aides and a Foreign Office minister who called at the last minute.

During an earlier visit to Britain in May to receive a prize, the Dalai Lama held private talks with Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg.

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