The White House has confirmed that Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama later this month despite strong objections from China.

President Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs did not announce a date for talks, but the Tibetan spiritual leader is in Washington on February 17th and 18th.

China, which regards the Dalai Lama as a separatist and attempts to isolate him on the world stage, warned earlier this week that such a meeting would "threaten trust and cooperation" between China and the US.

But a meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama - both Nobel peace prize laureates - was always the most likely outcome.

Mr Obama's predecessor George Bush met the Buddhist leader three times in his eight years in office and in 2007 awarded him the congressional gold medal, the highest US civilian award.

Nevertheless the row over the Dalai Lama comes during a time of increased tensions between the two countries.

This year Beijing has reacted angrily to veiled accusations from Google that it was behind a cyber attack upon human rights activists' email accounts and US plans to sell $6.4 billion of defensive weapons to Taiwan.

The bad blood adds to the disagreements that characterised President Obama's first year in office including rows over trade imports, a lack of Chinese support on stricter sanctions against Iran and Beijing's unmoving stance on carbon emissions at Copenhagen last year.

China, which has a longstanding position of warning foreign leaders off meeting the Dalai Lama, seized control of Tibet in 1950, while the Dalai Lama fled into exile nine years later aged 23 following a failed uprising.

Beijing regards the Buddhist leader as leading a "splittist" agenda, although he is now in semi-retirement after leading a non-violent campaign for greater autonomy in his homeland, his efforts winning him the Nobel peace prize in 1989.