Dharamsala, Sep 18 (IANS): The Dalai Lama, who was two years back refused a visa to South Africa for a peace conference, is now waiting to be cleared for a visit to the country to meet his "close friend" and fellow Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu next month.

"We hope the South African government will grant visa to His Holiness Dalai Lama," Thubten Samphel, secretary of the information and international relations department of the Central Tibetan Administration based in this Himachal Pradesh town, told IANS.

Archbishop Tutu has invited the Dalai Lama for his 80th birthday celebrations in Cape Town Oct 7. "His Holiness and Tutu are close friends and share a close bond," Samphel said Sunday.

The Tibetan was denied a visa by the South African government in March 2009 as it has close ties with China. He was to attend a peace conference.

Former South African president and another Nobel laureate F.W. De Klerk has also spoken in support of extending a visa to the Dalai Lama.

"South Africa must decide on two things, is it an open society and secondly does it really respect religious figures?" media reports quoted De Klerk as saying in Johannesburg Sep 16.

"In an open society he should be allowed to come."

He said the Dalai Lama was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and there was no justification for not granting him a visa.

Even Tutu has warned that the government would "shoot itself in the foot" by again refusing his fellow Nobel Peace laureate entry into South Africa.

Last week, the South Africa government said "it's considering a visa request from the Dalai Lama".

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet during a failed uprising in 1959. He favours "greater autonomy" for Tibetans rather than complete independence.

Chinese leaders have, in fact, called him a separatist who wants Tibet to secede from China.