E.U. rules out Olympic boycott over Tibet

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, March 17 (UPI) -- European Union officials have ruled out staging a boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing over violence in Tibet, officials said.

The Financial Times reported Monday that officials from the 27 E.U. countries met in Slovenia, where officials discussed the recent clashes between Tibetans and the Chinese government.

"Under no circumstance will we support the boycott. We are 100 percent unanimous," Patrick Hickey, head of the European Olympic committees, was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Beijing to begin talks with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist spiritual leader, who is seen by Chinese as a separatist.

Mark Malloch-Brown, the British minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, was quoted by the BBC as saying the Olympics "is China's coming out party and they should take great care to do nothing that will wreck that."