Dharamsala, March 18 – The Tibetan government-in-exile Tuesday expressed hope that China’s newly-appointed President Hu Jintao will be able to break the deadlock in resolving the Tibetan problem.
“The New Chinese leadership led by Hu Jintao have a huge responsibility to resolve the Tibetan issue,” Pema Jungney, the speaker of Tibet’s parliament-in-exile said during a speech.
“A formal relation with the Chinese leadership has been re-established last September and we hope the relationship will move in a positive direction,” Jungney said, while addressing the Tibetan parliament’s budget session.
Relations between Tibetan government-in-exile and China, which had been estranged since 1993, received a boost last September after a visit by a Chinese delegation to Lhasa where they met an envoy of the Dalai Lama.
Pema said he hoped Hu Jintao and his colleagues will find “the courage and wisdom” to resolve the Tibetan issue.
“Longer the Tibetan issue remain unsolved, bigger the problem will grow in both Tibet and China. Eventually, it will only damage China’s image,” he said. Hu Jintao became China’s new president on Saturday, marking the first orderly power transfer in communist China’s 54-year history. Hu is expected to continue liberal economic policies.
Tibet’s parliament-in-exile was instituted in the northern Indian hill state Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamsala town in 1960, a year after the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India after an aborted uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and is based in Dharamsala.
