GERMANY:THE DALAI Lama's five-country European tour is mired in controversy before it even begins this week after Germany's foreign minister declined to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
A spokesman for foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier confirmed yesterday that he had no plans to meet the Dalai Lama this week.
The refusal comes just seven months after Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), received the Dalai Lama in the chancellery last October, provoking an angry reaction in Beijing.
Mr Steinmeier, a senior Social Democrat (SPD), dismissed Dr Merkel's meeting as media-friendly "window-dressing politics". The strain the meeting caused in relations with Beijing has only begun to dissipate, foreign ministry officials say, and the German foreign minister is unwilling to risk a relapse.
"It is naturally a disappointment," said Tseten Chhoekyapa, the Dalai Lama's envoy for central and eastern Europe, who suggested that Mr Steinmeier had been "badly advised".
The Dalai Lama's schedule in Germany includes speeches in Bochum, Mönchengladbach, Nuremberg and Bamberg, ending next Monday with a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
But finding political leaders to meet him at each stop is turning into an embarrassing game of diplomatic pass-the-parcel. Dr Merkel is away on a state visit to Latin America. The office of President Horst Kohler said that a meeting was impossible because of "scheduling difficulties".
The Dalai Lama will have to make do with lower-profile Christian Democrat (CDU) figures and no leading SPD figures.
The trip is the Dalai Lama's first to Europe since the March riots in Tibet prompted worldwide protests over Chinese rule in the territory.
Earlier this month the Chinese government held talks with aides to the Dalai Lama. No date has been set for further talks.
Roland Koch, a leading Christian Democrat with close ties to the Dalai Lama, has criticised Mr Steinmeier's decision.
"At a time when talks have begun between the Chinese and the exiled Tibetan leadership, it would be fatal to create the impression in China that [the] human rights issue is not central for the German government," he said.
After Germany, the Dalai Lama is travelling to Britain, where he will meet prime minister Gordon Brown at the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A UK government spokesperson said the venue reflected the Dalai Lama's status as a "respected spiritual leader", but pro-Tibet campaigners suggested that the exiled leader was not invited to Downing Street to avoid upsetting Beijing.