BEIJING - The US embassy in Beijing on Saturday criticised China for its handling of a trip to the Tibetan capital Lhasa for foreign diplomats and demanded that foreign journalists and diplomats should have free access to Tibet and the areas of unrest.
The statement came amid a two-day visit, which began Friday, which China organised for a delegation of Western diplomats, including from the US, Germany, Britain, France and Australia, to Lhasa.
But the US said that the visit was so tightly controlled that the diplomats had no opportunity to deviate from the travel schedule, or to talk independently with Lhasa residents without the Chinese escorts listening in.
The group of more than a dozen diplomats was due to return to Beijing later Saturday. On Friday, they were brought together with government officials in Lhasa and other selected individuals for talks. The diplomats also were taken to see houses damaged in the unrest two weeks ago.
Meanwhile China publicly said Saturday that each family of 18 people killed in the March 14 unrest would receive 200,000 yuan (28,560 dollars) in compensation, the official Xinhua agency reported.
By Tibetan exile accounts, some 140 people had died in the unrest, many of them shot by Chinese police.
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