Agence France Presse

New Delhi, June 21:

The supreme religious post of the Dalai Lama should be abolished if Tibet became autonomous and democratic, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said in an interview published today. “If I were to die in the next few months or before we were able to return to Tibet, there will be a new Dalai Lama,” the 69-year-old spiritual leader was quoted as telling the Hindustan Times newspaper. “But if we cease to be a refugee community and live in democratic Tibet, then I don’t think there should be a successor to me after I die,” he reportedly said. His comments came as thousands of Tibetans prepare to celebrate his 70th birthday next month in north India, where the spiritual leader based himself after fleeing his homeland in 1959.