Dalai Lama Visits Japan, Meets With Press

The Dalai Lama in Japan:

The Dalai Lama on Thursday met with Japan’s former first lady as he started his first foreign trip since protests in Tibet a month ago set off an international furore.

Tibet’s spiritual leader, who has lived in exile in India for nearly 50 years, was on a short stopover in Japan on his way to Seattle, where he will start a series of lectures in the United States on spirituality.

The maroon-robed monk smiled, said hello and put his hands together in a traditional Buddhist greeting as several dozen supporters cheered him on at Narita airport near Tokyo. He was due later to give a press conference.

He met at a hotel with Akie Abe, the wife of Japan’s former conservative prime minister Shinzo Abe who stepped down last year. But he is not expected to meet with officials, said the top spokesman for the Japanese government.

“Government officials have no plan to meet with him. I have also not heard that the Dalai Lama expressed a desire for a meeting,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

The Dalai Lama has frequently visited Japan, where his lectures on religious matters enjoy a wide following, and often transits through Narita on his way to North America.

But Japanese leaders, unlike many of their Western counterparts, have almost always refused to meet with the Dalai Lama and no officials were scheduled to meet with him on his stopover.