Washington  - US President Barack Obama has decided to delay a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in China next month.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Washington on Monday for meetings with congressional leaders and other events, but will not hold a one-on- one meeting with Obama, a special envoy for the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, said.

The Dalai Lama has agreed to sit down with Obama following his November trip to China and did not object to the White House decision to postpone the meeting with Tibet spiritual leader.

"The Dalai Lama has always been supportive of American engagement with China," the special envoy said. "Our hope is that the cooperative US-Chinese relationship that President Obama's administration seeks will create conditions that support the resolution of the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people."

The Obama administration is seeking to build closer ties to China in order to recover from the economic crisis, persuade Beijing to introduce economic reforms and get on board in the fight against climate change.

Human rights advocates have criticized Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying they have downgraded the importance of confronting China on rights abuses.

Before she visited China in February, Clinton said advocacy for human rights could not "interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crisis."

The Dalai Lama has traditionally held private meetings with US presidents during visits to Washington. The Washington Post said it would be the first time the Dalai Lama will have visited Washington without meeting with the president since 1991.

During the Dalai Lama's last visit in 2007, then-president George W Bush met with him publicly at the Capitol to award him the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award.  dpa