China says door for dialogue with Dalai open

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held open the door for dialogue with the Dalai Lama on Friday, but revealed Beijing's deep-seated fears of Tibet's exiled and revered spiritual leader.

"Our policy toward the Dalai Lama has been clear and consistent. That is to say as long as the Dalai Lama recognizes that Tibet and Taiwan are parts of inseparable Chinese territory and abandons splittist activities ... then the door is always open," Wen told a news conference.

The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Communist rule. The People's Liberation Army marched into the predominantly Buddhist region in 1951.

Wen accused the Tibetan god-king of "demanding that all Chinese troops withdraw from Tibet, that all Han Chinese and other ethnic groups living in Tibet also evacuate."