US President George W Bush defended on Wednesday his plan to appear at an award ceremony for the Dalai Lama in the face of Chinese objections and urged Beijing to open talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader China views as a separatist. Bush also urged Turkey not to launch a major incursion into northern Iraq.

The Dalai Lama is set to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the country’s highest civilian honour, by the US Congress in an award China angrily denounced as a “farce” that would hurt relations between Beijing and Washington.

Bush, who will attend the ceremony on Capitol Hill in the first public appearance by a US president with the Dalai Lama, said he was going because he supported religious freedom and admired the Tibetan monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

“I have consistently told the Chinese that religious freedom is in their nation’s interest,” he told a news conference hours before the ceremony. “I’ve also told them that I think it’s in their interest to meet with the Dalai Lama and will say so at the ceremony today in Congress,” he said. “If they were to sit down with the Dalai Lama, they would find him to be a man of peace and reconciliation,” Bush added.

A smiling Dalai Lama emerged from his White House meeting with Bush on Tuesday and shrugged off the Chinese criticism, telling reporters: “That always happens.”

In Beijing, top religious affairs official condemned the medal award as a “farce” and called on the Dalai Lama to abandon dreams of independence for Tibet.

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