Dalai Lama has given up on Tibet talks with China: "There hasn't been any positive response from the Chinese side"

The Dalai Lama will abandon efforts to persuade China to allow autonomy in Tibet, the exiled Tibetan leader has declared.

“As far as I’m concerned I have given up,” the Dalai Lama said October 25 from Dharamsala, India, home to the Tibetan government-in-exile, according to the Associated Press.

It’s now up to the 6 million Tibetans to determine a new plan, the 73-year-old Buddhist leader said. Around 300 Tibetan delegates will hold a special meeting next month in India, according to Reuters.

For decades, the Dalai Lama has advocated a “middle way” diplomatic approach, under which Tibet is ruled by China but has space to continue its ancient Buddhist culture. “There hasn’t been any positive response from the Chinese side,” he said, according to the AP. An eighth round of Tibetan-Chinese talks was planned for late last month.

It was the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s first public statement since he was released from an Indian hospital in October after being treated for gallstones.

Since 1950, when communist Chinese forces invaded Tibet, religious freedom there has been radically curtailed, according to the U.S. State Department. –Religion News Service