Cabinet Official Accepts Dalai Lama Letter
(Muzi.com | Japan | December 30, 2002)
Tokyo: A senior official of the Cabinet Secretariat accepted a letter addressed to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi from the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, for the first time in August last year, a government source said Sunday.
According to the source, the Dalai Lama wrote the letter to congratulate Koizumi on assuming the post of prime minister. The Dalai Lama's liaison office in Japan initially contacted government officials in August last year to have the letter delivered to Koizumi, but was refused.
The letter was finally handed to a senior Cabinet Secretariat official on August 28 of the same year after mediation by House of Representatives member Seishu Makino, who represents a lawmakers' group contemplating the Tibetan issue, the source said.
Tokyo has restrained from contact with the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in northern India since 1959, out of concern for Beijing, which sees him as a 'splittist.'
China strongly protested in November when a senior Japanese government official held talks with the Dalai Lama while the spiritual leader made a stopover in Japan on his way back to India after visiting Mongolia.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org