DHARMASALA: Representatives of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will revive stalled talks with China on Tuesday over the thorny issue of the Himalayan region’s autonomy, his office said.

The last round of talks collapsed 15 months ago with Beijing saying no progress had been made and insisting it would not compromise on the status of Tibet as an integral part of China.

“We are meeting the Chinese and this is an important process of trying to find a mutually agreed solution,” the Dalai Lama’s spokesman Tenzin Taklha said today.

“The agenda of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the same: that the problem has to be solved only through dialogue,” he said.

Taklha added that the exact venue for the meeting in China had not been confirmed but said the envoys would return to India by the beginning of February.

After their last interaction in November 2008, China said the door would be kept open for future discussions despite the “serious divergences” that remained.

Lodi G Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen will again lead what will be the ninth round of talks, said officials in Dharamsala, the Indian hill town where the Dalai Lama has lived for five decades and where many Tibetan exiles are based.

China said last year it would consider reviving the dialogue, which began in 2002, but has often repeated demands that the Tibetan leader renounce “separatist” activities — which he denies supporting.

The Dalai Lama has sought “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet since he fled his homeland following a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the region.China says the Dalai Lama actually seeks full independence.

Tibet erupted in violence in March 2008 on the 49th anniversary of the failed uprising and the remote region has since been tightly controlled.

Obama faced intense criticism last year when he declined to meet the

Dalai Lama, the first time in nearly two decades that the spiritual leader has not met thepresident during a visit to Washington.

Critics of Obama said he avoided an encounter so as not to upset Beijing before the president’s high-stakes debut visit to China in November.