WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama at the White House Saturday, the White House announced Friday, according to FOX News Channel.
The 76-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is visiting Washington, D.C., to lead an 11-day Kalachakra initiation, a high-level Tibetan Buddhist teaching, according to Politico. The two leaders are scheduled to meet in the Map Room at 11:30am local time.
The setting of the meeting is the latest attempt by the Obama administration to keep a low profile on the president’s engagements with the Dalai Lama in order to avoid inflaming tensions with China, which controls the Tibet region. The Dalai Lama is considered the foremost spokesperson for the Tibetan independence movement.
Obama last hosted the Dalai Lama in February 2010, but the president was criticized after the religious leader was photographed leaving the White House through a side door and walking past a pile of garbage bags, the political website reported.
Obama also sparked criticism in October 2009, when he became the first US president not to host the Dalai Lama at the White House since 1991, Politico reported.