By Kalsang Rinchen

Phayul[Monday, June 22, 2009

Dharamsala, June 22, 2009 - The exile Tibetan government which recently concluded its 19th Task Force meeting is making efforts to break the deadlock with the Chinese leadership and resume talks with Beijing.

'We have deliberated upon ways to break the impasse with the Chinese so that the dialogue process can come back on track,' Sonam N. Dagpo, secretary of the Department of Information and International Relations, was quoted by Indo Asian News Service as saying.

Talks between Dalai Lama's envoys and Beijing came to a standstill after a "Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People” submitted by the Tibetan side at the eighth round of talks in October last year was met with Beijing’s derision. China accused the Tibetan side of seeking disguised independence through the “so called autonomy”.

“We want to settle the issue mutually and within the framework of the Chinese constitution, law and national regional autonomy. We do not hold any secret agenda,” Dagpo told IANS.

The Tibetan side maintains that the articles of the proposed memorandum were prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the PRC and its laws on National Regional Autonomy, and claims China has rejected the proposal without providing any “legal and rational explanations".

Dagpo further said that the Task Force has prepared an explanatory note to clarify the Tibetan side’s stand on Tibet and issues raised in the memorandum submitted during the last talks. We are trying to dispel China's doubts and misunderstandings about the memorandum.

The Task Force was set up in 1999 to mainly assist the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in their talks with the representatives of the Chinese government. The members of the unit last met in the Indian capital of New Delhi in February this year.

The Tibetan task force was set up by the government-in-exile in 1999 to assist the Dalai Lama and his envoys hold talks with the Chinese.