June 1, 20161:52am

AAP

The Dalai Lama says Europe has taken in too many migrants and refugees.

In an interview published on Tuesday by the FAZ broadsheet, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, said the surge of arrivals in Europe - around one million last year - has led not only to practical difficulties, but also moral ones.

"Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arabic country. Germany is Germany," the paper reports.

"The goal should be that they return and help to rebuild their own countries."

His comments echo the concerns of a growing number of Europeans, as anti-migrant parties calling for limits on arrivals and stricter border controls grow in popularity.

Many of the arrivals are Muslims fleeing wars and persecution in the Middle East and Africa.

Eastern European countries in particular have been reluctant to take in refugees amid fears that it may taint the countries' predominantly Christian culture.

But while a number of right-wing populist parties across Europe target Muslims as part of the problem - for example the Alternative for Germany, which recently enshrined its anti-Islam policy in the party manifesto - the Dalai Lama explained that Islam is a religion founded on love.

Speaking of the warring Sunni and Shiite factions in the Middle East, he said: "They do not represent the whole of Islam nor all Muslims."

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in Dharamsala, India, since 1959.

When asked whether he envisages spending the rest of his life there, the Buddhist monk said he was optimistic that he may return to Tibet "in a couple of years".

China has changed dramatically "compared to the China 30, 40 years ago", he told FAZ, adding that the once-secular country, in which the semi-autonomous region of Tibet is situated, now has the world's largest population of Buddhists.

http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/dalai-lama-europe-has-too-many-refugees/news-story/2c4536f318859647d00ca5477419dab4

file photo Dalai Lama