Dalai Lama Arrives In Poland For Eight-Day Visit

Gdansk, Poland, 5 December 2008 (Phuyul.com) - The exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived in Poland Friday for an eight-day tour.

"I'm very happy to be in the city where the historic Solidarity movement was born and where my friend Lech Walesa began his activities", the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying by AFP as he arrived at the airport in the Baltic port of Gdansk.

The revered Tibetan leader and winner of 1989 Nobel Peace Prize and other Nobel Peace laureates were invited to Gdansk to celebrate the 25 years since Poland's Lech Walesa won the award for leading Poland's Solidarity movement in a peaceful struggle against the then communist regime.

During the visit, the Tibetan leader will meet visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Dalai Lama's high-profile Europe tour and Sarkozy's scheduled meeting with him has upset China.

In protest, China decided to walk away from a long-planned annual summit with EU which had been scheduled for December 1 in France and warned France of serious consequences in trade and bilateral relations.

But Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation European Union, has insisted he will meet the Dalai Lama in Poland on Saturday.