Within days of making an offer for talks to the Dalai Lama's [Images] envoy, China on Sunday fired a fresh salvo at the Tibetan leader accusing him of 'playing with words' to drum up support for 'Tibetan independence'.

Coverage: Tibet Revolts

In the face of intense international pressure, China announced on Friday that it would hold a meeting with a 'private representative' of the Dalai Lama, whom it has accused of inciting riots in Lhasa and elsewhere during the strongest-ever anti-government protests in two decades.

The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party of China, said the key word of 'various definitions put forward by the Dalai Lama clique, including the so-called 'middle-way' and 'high autonomy', is nothing but 'Tibetan independence'.

The Dalai Lama was 'playing with words' to drum up support for the 'so called Tibet [Images] issue', the newspaper said in its commentary titled 'Attempts to split the motherland are doomed to failure'.

The Tibet Daily, also a party newspaper, had on Saturday called the March 14 riots in Lhasa as 'another ugly performance' plotted by the Dalai clique.

After China announced its position on talks, the Tibetan government in exile based at Dharamsala in India had insisted that Beijing [Images] should stop the vilification campaign against their leader.

The Dalai Lama has cautiously welcomed the dialogue saying: 'We need to have serious talks about how to reduce the Tibetan resentment within Tibet'.

On his return from a trip to the US, the Dalai Lama also said: 'Mere meeting of some of my men in order to show the world that they are having a dialogue, is meaningless'.

The Dalai Lama had himself said in the US recently that his representatives were holding private talks with China but added that it was still 'in full mystery'.