Envoys of the Dalai Lama are to travel to China to meet the Beijing government over the crisis in Tibet.
During this brief visit, the envoys will take up the urgent issue of the current crisis in the Tibetan areas," the Tibet government-in-exile said in a statement on its website.
After a crackdown on protests against Chinese rule in Tibet, an international diplomatic chorus earlier this year urged dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Beijing abruptly announced in late April that it intended to meet his aides.
The envoys are due to arrive in China tomorrow for what the Tibetan side called "informal talks".
"We are hopeful that the Chinese are willing to address the Tibet issue realistically," Tenzin Taklha, a spokesman of the Dalai Lama, said from India, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.
Despite the offer of talks, China has accused Tibet's exiled spiritual leader of manipulating opinion and governments in the West.
China has blamed the exiled Buddhist leader's "clique" for unrest across Lhasa and other Tibetan areas, which it says was aimed at upstaging the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
There have been six rounds of dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys since 2002 with no breakthrough.