Dalai's plan to retire nonsense: Tibet top official

BEIJING - The Dalai Lama's announcement of his plan to step down as political head of the "exiled Tibetan government" is "absolutely meaningless", said a top legislator of the Tibet autonomous region on Thursday.

"There is a great difference between the Dalai Lama retiring as a political head and his retiring as a religious leader," Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the standing committee of the Tibet autonomous region's people's congress and former chairman of the region, told China Daily on the sidelines of the National People's Congress annual session.

"Since no country recognizes his self-declared 'exiled Tibetan government', whatever he does in his illegal political organization is nonsense and Tibet will not be affected at all."