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Dalai Lama to visit Swiss capital

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is to visit the Swiss capital Bern as part of the city's efforts to promote inter-religious cooperation.

The visit on October 13 will revolve around an inter-religious celebration, the city authorities announced on Tuesday.

Officials added that the Dalai Lama was invited in February in his capacity as a Nobel Peace Prize winner and religious leader, before unrest began in Tibet last month.

The Swiss government is still to decide whether it will meet the Dalai Lama.

During his last visit to Switzerland in 2005 around 10,000 people came to hear him talk at a conference in Zurich.

Switzerland is home to an estimated 3,500 Tibetans. They are said to form the biggest Tibetan community in Europe, and the third largest in the world.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR