Dalai Lama to attend Nobel peace laureates` meeting in Hiroshima

TOKYO, Sept. 28 Kyodo -
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will attend a symposium of
Nobel peace prize winners to be held in the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima from
Nov. 12 to 14, his office in Tokyo, the Liaison Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama
for Japan and East Asia, said Tuesday.
The 14th Dalai Lama's visit to Japan coincides with Chinese President Hu
Jintao's attendance at the leaders' summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum to be held in Yokohama on Nov. 13-14.
Diplomatic sources said the Dalai Lama's visit could further anger China as
Japan and China have been in a standoff since the Japan Coast Guard arrested
the skipper of a Chinese fishing boat on Sept. 8 over a collision between his
ship and two Japanese patrol boats near the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands
in the East China Sea.
Nobel peace prize winners have discussed how to promote global peace at the
World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates since 1999.
The meeting of the Nobel Peace Prize winners began in that year, and the
upcoming Hiroshima summit under the theme of a nuclear-free world will be the
11th and the first in Japan.
The municipal and prefectural governments of Hiroshima have asked U.S.
President Barack Obama to attend the meeting.
The Dalai Lama has visited Japan almost every year to attend religious events.
In June this year, he paid a visit to Zenkoji Temple in Nagano before traveling
to Kanazawa and Yokohama for lectures.
Zenkoji Temple is known to have declined to serve as the starting point of the
Japan leg of the 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay due to the Chinese crackdown
on Buddhists in Tibet.
In 2009, the Dalai Lama visited Okinawa Prefecture.
China, calling the Dalai Lama a separatist, has attacked the Japanese
government each time it has allowed him to visit the country.
==Kyodo