BERLIN: Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama criticized Russia's President Vladimir Putin as "self-centred" in a German newspaper interview on Sunday, saying Putin seems to want to "rebuild the Berlin Wall".

"His attitude is: 'I, I, I'," the Dalai Lama said, pointing out that Putin had served as Russian president, then prime minister and then president again.

"That's a bit too much," he told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "This is very self-centred."