US restores aid for Tibetans in exile, Tibetan leader says

FILE PHOTO: Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, offers blessings to his followers at his Himalayan residence in Dharamshala

DHARAMSHALA, India (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has decided to lift aid cuts for Tibetans in exile and provide $7 million in financing for projects such as those supporting health and education, the leader of the Tibetan government in-exile said on Wednesday.

The Trump administration started cutting foreign aid after taking office in January as part of its “America First” policy, which has had an impact on programmes including those aimed at securing food supplies and preventing the spread of HIV in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Penpa Tsering, leader of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in India, the government in-exile, said he believed Tibetans became “collateral damage” in foreign assistance cuts and that their leadership had worked hard to restore U.S. funding.

“I’m happy to inform you that the U.S. government has decided to lift the termination,” Tsering told reporters in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala on the sidelines of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday celebrations.

“We received this communication just day before yesterday.”

The U.S. embassy in New Delhi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tsering said that the U.S. aid cut had affected the momentum of the CTA’s work.

“We did manage to get stop gap arrangements from other governments. Also, we’ll be looking to diversify our sources in the future,” he said.

The elderly Dalai Lama assured his followers on Wednesday that upon his death he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and spelt out a succession process that sets up a renewed clash with China.

Beijing views the Dalai Lama, who fled to India from Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, as a separatist.

The United States, which faces rising competition from China for global dominance, has repeatedly said it is committed to advancing the human rights of Tibetans. U.S. lawmakers have previously said they would not allow China to influence the choice of the Dalai Lama’s successor.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in Dharamshala and Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Kim Coghill)