Berlin  - A spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed Monday pressure from China for the German leader not to meet again with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

"She alone decides if she has a meeting, when she meets and whom she meets," deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg said, but added there was no date for any future meeting.

"No fresh appointment is planned and no appointment has been given," he said.

A German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, had quoted Merkel on Sunday as saying she would meet again with the Dalai Lama, but not next month as she will be absent in Latin America when he visits Germany. He visited her Berlin office last September.

"She meant that her meeting with the Dalai Lama was not unique," Steg said.

China fiercely criticized last year's meeting and has accused the Buddhist leader of ordering violence in Tibet. (dpa)