UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki Moon urged China on Monday to show restraint in handling protests in Tibet, in a cautious response to an issue in which the world body appears reluctant to get involved.

'I urge restraint on the part of the (Chinese) authorities and call on all concerned to avoid further confrontation and violence,' he told reporters after attending a luncheon meeting with members of the UN Security Council.

The UN secretary general said the unrest in Tibet, an autonomous Chinese province, did not come up during the luncheon with the 15 council ambassadors.

'I am closely monitoring the situation,' he said, adding that he met separately with Chinese ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya earlier on Monday to express his concern about the violence.

'I am increasingly concerned about the tension and reports of violence and loss of life in Tibet and elsewhere,' Mr Ban said.

On Sunday, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, condemned what he said was China's 'cultural genocide' in Tibet and called for an international investigation into unrest there.

Britain urges China to 'show responsibility'
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Monday deplored the violence following recent protests in Tibet and called on the Chinese government to 'show responsibility' by engaging in dialogue.

Mr Miliband, speaking after talks with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in Stockholm, said Britain and Sweden 'both deplored the violence that has already taken place and claimed too many lives.'

'Now it is clear that there is a need for the Chinese government to show the responsibility of a strong and great nation and to ensure that the substantive dialogue that is the only way forward for Tibet really does take place,' he said.

'It is dialogue, and the respect of human rights and rule of law, that is going to be important for forging a way forward,' he added.

Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the council chair this month, told reporters that the turmoil 'is not a matter for the Security Council,' pointing to a statement issued by his foreign ministry.

'Russia has often stated that Tibet is an integral part of China and it considers relations with the Dalai Lama an internal matter for China,' the ministry said.

China's influence
Mr Ban, as secretary general, is often called upon to use his moral authority to speak out on matters of human rights. But in the case of Tibet, he has to tread carefully due to China's considerable influence at the United Nations.

'He is being told by his senior advisers that he should be cautious because of China's influence, China's presence in the Security Council and China's clout in the UN,' a UN source said.

Mr Ban took his cue from Louise Arbour, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who Friday called on Beijing to 'allow demonstrators to exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly, to refrain from any excessive use of force while maintaining order.'

'We don't have independent reports of what is happening in Tibet. What we know is what we are hearing from the media and from other sources,' UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Monday.

'We have completely conflicting numbers in terms of how many people died, how many people were wounded.' 'We are concerned about what might happen after the deadline (set by Chinese authorities),' she added, stressing that Mr Ban was 'very concerned about the violence getting worse.'

midnight deadline
Chinese authorities have set a deadline of midnight on Monday for Tibetans involved in the unrest to surrender and warned that people sheltering them would be punished.

In its first official account of the unrest in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, China blamed protesters who rose up against Chinese rule, in what has turned into a public relations nightmare for Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games.

'They either burned or hacked to death 13 innocent civilians,' Tibet government chairman Qiangba Puncog told reporters in Beijing, adding Chinese forces had not fired weapons at protesters.

But according to the Tibetan government-in-exile and aides to the Dalai Lama, the Chinese crackdown in Tibet left about 100 Tibetans dead, though it could be as many as 'hundreds.' In Lhasa, a massive security presence remained in place to ensure there was no repeat of Friday's violence, with independent reports still filtering out of the city despite foreign journalists being denied entry.

Security forces were also busy trying to end a wave of anti-Chinese protests in areas of western China with large ethnic Tibetan populations.

Earlier Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Beijing to open talks with the Dalai Lama, amid mounting international unease over the situation in Tibet.

The protests came amid a growing global campaign by Tibetans to challenge Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region ahead of the Olympic Games in August.

China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to 'liberate' the region and officially annexed it a year later.