BERLIN: The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, on Monday ended a five-day visit to Germany that became mired in controversy because only one government minister agreed to meet with him.

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the development minister, met with the Dalai Lama on Monday. She apparently did so against the wishes of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the leader of the Social Democrats, Kurt Beck. Both had said that no senior party leaders would meet with the Dalai Lama.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met with the Dalai Lama in the chancellery in September, was on a weeklong tour of Latin America during his latest visit.

The Chinese Embassy in Berlin spoke out against Wieczorek-Zeul's meeting.

"We object to a member of the German government receiving the Dalai Lama, and to Germany allowing him to carry out this visit," Junhui Zhang, a Chinese diplomat told The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

He accused the Dalai Lama of "playing politics" ahead of the Olympics, which will be held in Beijing in August. The Dalai Lama ended his visit with a big rally at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of Germany's reunification. There were makeshift posters criticizing Steinmeier and President Horst Köhler, who said he could not find the time to meet the Tibetan, according to his office.

Wieczorek-Zeul said Monday that she was not prepared to follow a party line or bow to pressure from Beijing. Before their 45-minute meeting at a hotel in Berlin, she said: "I don't understand the excitement about the meeting with the Dalai Lama. I regularly talk with religious leaders. Why not with the Dalai Lama?" The original venue was to have been her ministry but that was changed, apparently to play down the official nature of the occasion.

Nevertheless, Wieczorek-Zeul said she was not going to talk to the Dalai Lama as a private citizen. "I am a member of the federal government," she said at a news conference.

Wieczorek-Zeul said her meeting with him had been "very good" and "fruitful," adding that it was very important to hear what the Dalai Lama had to say about the recent negotiations with the Chinese authorities.

"I took advantage of the opportunity to let the Dalai Lama inform me about the situation in Tibet, based on his point of view," she said after the meeting. "Of course we discussed the necessity for cultural autonomy in this context, as well as about the dialogue between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama."

The Chinese authorities last month re-opened a dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives in response to the international criticism of its crackdown of anti-Chinese demonstrators in Tibet in March.

Steinmeier, who has cultivated close ties with the Chinese leadership since he was chief of staff for Gerhard Schröder when he was chancellor from 1999 to 2005, has kept his distance from the Dalai Lama rather than risk offending the Chinese.

"It takes a lot of courage not to meet with the Dalai Lama these days," said Steinmeier, defending his decision not to meet the exiled Tibetan.

Conservatives said it was the responsibility of the foreign minister to be briefed by the Dalai Lama over the status of the talks with Beijing.

Several conservative regional leaders have held talks with the Dalai Lama over the past few days.

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