MOSCOW — The Russian government Friday refused to grant the Dalai Lama permission to visit Russia, reversing course after initially agreeing to allow the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader to come here for the first time in a decade.
The decision, announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry late Friday, will force the Dalai Lama to cancel his trip next month to three Buddhist territories in Russia close to the border with China. More than 1 million Buddhists live in Kalmykia, Tuva and Buryatia. In what has become an annual exercise, Russia has routinely denied the Dalai Lama permission to visit his followers here.
Buddhist leaders immediately suggested that the Russian decision was an attempt to curry favor with the Chinese government, which has maintained strict control over Tibet since the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is expected to visit China later this month.
"We believe it's connected to Kasyanov's visit," said Maya Malygina, an organizer of the Dalai Lama's trip and an official of the Lama Tsongkhapa Buddhist Center here.
Russian officials gave no official explanation for the decision but acknowledged that Beijing's opposition weighed heavily. "At this stage, it has been deemed appropriate to cancel the Dalai Lama's visit to Russia," Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Boris Malakhov said late Friday.
According to Interfax news agency, Malakhov added, "In dealing with this matter, account should naturally be taken of the position of the People's Republic of China, whose leadership takes a strongly negative attitude to the Dalai Lama's political activities." The official suggested that while Buddhist organizers had promised to make the trip to Russia purely religious, recently the "political essence" of the visit had caused Russian concern.
This year looked to be different. Negotiations for the trip began in September and as recently as January, the Russian Foreign Ministry told organizers that they were likely to approve the Dalai Lama's visit "if we kept it strictly to religion, without a hint of politics," Malygina said. Just last month, Russian officials again said publicly they were ready for the visit to go forward.
But on Thursday, word first leaked out that the Dalai Lama's visa would not be granted. "We had completely no idea," Malygina said, and Buddhist leaders scrambled to reverse the decision. Kalmykia President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov personally called Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking his intervention, but as of late Friday had not heard back.
"It's a big defeat for us," Malygina said. "We're almost hopeless now that His Holiness will ever come here."
Before the decision was announced late Friday, other Buddhist leaders vowed to protest outside the Foreign Ministry if the Dalai Lama's application was rejected. "Banning the Dalai Lama from entering Russia would mean a violation of the constitutional rights of all Buddhists of our country," leader Damba Ayusheyev told reporters.
The Dalai Lama last visited Russia's Buddhist regions in 1992, but has received permission since. In 1995, he received a one-day transit visa through Moscow to visit Mongolia, but a similar transit visa request was refused last year.