Diplomat: Tibet issue not about human rights

GENEVA -- The Tibet issue is not an ethnic issue, not a religious issue, nor a human rights issue, but an issue either to safeguard national unification or to split the motherland, a Chinese diplomat said here on Friday.

"The Tibet issue is entirely an internal issue of China which concerns the country's sovereignty," said Qian Bo, counsellor of the Chinese Mission to the UN Office in Geneva.

The diplomat was addressing a regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, during which some delegates made biased comments on the so-called human rights situation in Tibet.