Sri Lanka govt unlikely to allow Dalai Lama visit

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Buddhist monks have invited exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to make his first visit to the island, after a strongly pro-China government was voted out in January, but an official said Colombo was unlikely to allow it.
Sri Lanka’s new President Maithripala Sirisena has loosened ties with Beijing and moved closer to India, which has hosted the Dalai Lama since he fled Tibet in 1959.
But the majority Buddhist island, which is home to some of the religion’s most sacred sites, still depends on China for major development investment and loans.
“They can invite, but the government may not grant a visa,” a top foreign minister official told Reuters, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. “The Dalai Lama is very important. But the close relationship with China is more important and we have not changed our stance on ‘One China’ policy.”
China approves of Sri Lanka’s stance on the Dalai Lama, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
“Sri Lanka is a traditional friendly neighbor of China’s, and bilateral relations have always developed smoothly,” Hua told a daily news briefing. “Sri Lanka fully understands and respects China’s concerns on the relevant issue.”
As China has grown more economically powerful it has used its influence to dissuade world leaders from meeting the Dalai Lama, whom it denounces as a dangerous separatist, but only a handful of countries outright prohibit him from visiting.
China offered Sri Lanka more than $1 billion in grants during a four-day official visit to Beijing by Sirisena last week, underscoring how lucrative the relationship remains for the island.