Confusion over Sarkozy's December meeting with Dalai Lama

According to a national Sunday newspaper here in France, the Dalai Lama will not be meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on December 10.

Sarkozy's office was quick to react, saying an official invitation had been sent. But a spokesman for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said none had been received and the Dalai Lama would not be available on the proposed date.

The two men are supposed to meet during celebrations in Paris to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10 - an event to which a number of Nobel peace prize laureates have been invited.

The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel in 1989.

But the national Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported that at the moment the Dalai Lama had "no plans to visit France during that period, no official invitation had been received and no hotels had been reserved for the Tibetan delegation."

Moreover the Dalai Lama's representative in France, Wangpo Bashi, also confirmed that no formal request to attend had been received, and he told the news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP), that there was already another visit scheduled for December 10.

"We haven't received any official written invitation and at the moment we cannot add anything more to a diary that is already very full," he told AFP

"In any case, December 10 will be impossible because he'll be in Poland on that date, although a meeting some time around then would be imaginable because he will be in Europe," he added.

The Dalai Lama is due in Poland on December 8 to receive an honorary doctorate from the Southern Polish city of Krakow's, Jagiellonian University. He is also due to visit the country's capital, Warsaw and the western city of Wroclaw.

In a statement released shortly after the newspaper article appeared, Sarkozy's office at the Elysée palace gave quite a different version of events.

It maintained it had confirmed with an emissary of the Dalai Lama that he would be in Paris in December to mark the 60th anniversary and would meet Sarkozy.

"Only reasons of health had not allowed the Dalai Lama at the moment to confirm his presence in December," the statement said.

Last month the 73-year-old underwent surgery to remove gallstones and afterwards was advised by doctors to make fewer foreign trips and to rest.

The whole confusion over a possible meeting between the two men could have been avoided had Sarkozy agreed to one back in August when the Dalai Lama Spent 12 days in France.

At the time there was controversy both at home and abroad when Sarkozy declined a meeting - a choice that was reportedly accepted by both sides prior to the Dalai Lama's arrival on the grounds that it would be inappropriate timing as the trip coincided with the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Instead it was Sarkozy's wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, along with the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, and the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, who met the Dalai Lama when they attended the opening of a Buddhist temple in southern France.