MOSCOW – The leader of Russia’s Kalmykia region said Friday that local Buddhist believers had invited the Dalai Lama for a visit and said the trip depended on the Russian Foreign Ministry which has twice refused to grant a visa to the Tibetan Buddhist leader.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the Russian republic of Kalmykia, said he and the Kalmyk Buddhist leader handed over the invitation to the Dalai Lama when they visited him in India last week.
The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Russia’s one million Buddhists. He accepted an invitation to visit Kalmykia – where half of the 300,000 population is Buddhist – on Sept. 25, following a trip to Japan, the United States and Germany, Ilyumzhinov said.
“The Dalai Lama accepted the invitation, and now it all depends on the (Russian) Foreign Ministry,” Ilyumzhinov, a 43-year-old millionaire who also serves as the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), said at a news conference. “As you know, last year he was denied an invitation because of China’s position.”
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman refused to comment on Ilyumzhinov’s statement.
In August 2002, the ministry denied a Russian visa to the Dalai Lama for the second time in a year, saying that Russia was concerned about political motives behind the visit and taking into account China’s “sharply negative” view of the Dalai Lama’s political activities.
China has struck a “strategic partnership” with Russia and has been the No.1 customer for the strugling Russian weapons industries.
Ilyumzhinov said the Dalai Lama had written a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that his visit will be of a purely religious character. Last year, the Russian Foreign Ministry particularly objected to the inclusion of allegedly nonreligious figures in the Dalai Lama’s delegation.
“I see no reason why a Nobel Peace Prize winner who visited the Soviet Union seven times cannot come,” Ilyumzhinov told reporters.
The Russian government considers Buddhism as one of its “traditional” faiths along with Islam, Judaism and Orthodox Christianity. It dates back to the 17th Century, when Buddhists first arrived in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia from Mongolia.
China occupied Tibet in 1951 and claims the Himalayan region has been Chinese territory for centuries.
The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India after an aborted uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and travels frequently to conduct Buddhist ceremonies and seek support for his campaign for Tibetan political and cultural rights.
