Berlin: The Dalai Lama will not meet Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier during his forthcoming visit to Germany, when Chancellor Angela Merkel will also be away, the foreign ministry said today.

"There is no meeting planned between the foreign minister and the Dalai Lama during his visit to Germany" between May 16-20,foreign ministry spokesman Elmar Eich told AFP.

Merkel met the Tibetan spiritual leader on his last visit to Germany last September, provoking an angry reaction in China and sparking a chill in relations between Berlin and Beijing.

As announced last month, Merkel will not be able to hold talks with the Dalai Lama this time because she will be on a visit to Latin America from May 13-20.

Germany welcomed the recent announcement of talks between China s government and representatives of the Dalai Lama, and Steinmeier held several phone calls with his Chinese counterparts to press for such a move.

The Dalai Lama will instead meet the speaker of parliament Norbert Lammert and the state premiers of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia Roland Koch and Juergen Ruettgers.

The spiritual leader's representative in Europe Tseten Chhoekyapa said the decision that Steinmeier will not meet the Dalai Lama was "an unhappy one and ... He has been badly advised."

Source : PTI