London: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will skip the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, his office has said.
The confirmation from Brown's Downing Street office on Wednesday means he is the second major world leader after German Chancellor Angela Merkel to do so.
The White House left open the possibility Wednesday that U.S. President George W. Bush might also skip the opening ceremonies, which some world leaders have suggested would serve as a signal of displeasure over China's crackdown in Tibet.
However, Brown's Downing Street office said he was not boycotting the Olympics and would attend the closing ceremony.
Brown has been under intense pressure from human rights campaigners to miss the Aug. 8 opening. However, Brown's decision not to attend was not aimed at sending a message of protest to the Chinese government, the spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
She said the decision had been made weeks ago and was not a stand on principle.
''He had never planned to attend,'' she said. ''There is absolutely no change in our position.''
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said in February that he expected many heads of state—including Bush, Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy—to attend the opening ceremony.
At the briefing Brown's spokesman was asked if the prime minister agreed with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's comments that the crackdown in Tibet meant there was a case for not attending the opening ceremony.
''Our position in relation to the Olympics had not changed,'' the spokesman answered, according to the briefing notes.
When asked specifically about the closing ceremonies when the Olympic torch will be passed to the organizing committee of the 2012 London Olympics, the spokesman said Brown would attend the closing.
Since London is hosting the next Olympics in 2012 British officials were expected to be prominent at events throughout the games. Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will represent the British government at the opening of the Beijing games.
US President hasn’t decided
The White House has been eager to separate politics from sports in discussing the Beijing Olympics, but it has not ruled out the possibility that President George W. Bush will skip the opening ceremonies this August.
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Bush, while speaking to Singapore’s Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, said: “We both agreed that it would stand the Chinese government in good stead if they would begin a dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama. They would find if they were to ever reach out to the Dalai Lama they would find him to be a really fine man, a peaceful man, a man who is anti violence, a man who is not for independence but for the cultural identify of the Tibetans being maintained."
Critics of China say that Bush avoiding the event would be a powerful sign of international anger over China's violent response to demonstrating Buddhist monks in Tibet. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokeswoman said Wednesday that Brown will not attend the opening ceremony.
Over two days, White House press secretary Dana Perino has faced questions about Bush's attendance at the opening gala for games that China hopes to use as a showcase of its rising economic and political power. She says Bush will go to the Olympics. But, pressed by reporters whether she could say whether Bush will attend the opening ceremony, Perino said Wednesday, ''I cannot.''
She says the reason is not uncommon: ''I'm not trying to signal anything by saying that; I don't have the president's schedule. It is way too far in advance for us to announce the president's schedule.''
Perino said Bush ''has been very clear that he believes that the right thing for him to do is to continue to press the Chinese on a range of issues, from human rights and democracy, political speech freedoms and religious tolerance, and to do that publicly and privately, before, during and after the Olympics.''
Democratic. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Robert Byrd and Robert Menendez sent Bush a letter Wednesday saying that the crackdown in Tibet ''should be unacceptable to anyone who believes in basic human freedoms.''
''We believe that your attendance at the opening ceremonies, rightly or not, would send the implicit message to the world that the United State condones the intolerance that has been demonstrated by these actions of the Chinese government,'' the letter said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution criticizing China for its crackdown on protesters in Tibet and urging Beijing to hold direct talks with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan religious leader, on the future of the region.
The resolution also demanded that China release Tibetans imprisoned for participating in peaceful demonstrations and allow international monitors and journalists unfettered access to the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China. It passed 413 to 1.
A similar resolution has been introduced in the Senate. Both say the opening of further Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States should be contingent on Beijing allowing the United States to establish an office in Lhasa, Tibet's capital.
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