VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI called for an end to violence in Tibet on Wednesday, urging "dialogue and tolerance" in his first remarks on the unrest there.

"Violence does not resolve problems, it only aggravates them," the pope told thousands of pilgrims at his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square.

The pope said he had been following events in Tibet "with great trepidation" and urged all sides "to have the courage to choose the path of dialogue and tolerance".

China, which has deployed a massive security force to quash an uprising in Tibet, said Wednesday it was in a "life or death struggle" over the region it has ruled for 57 years.

Rioting in the Tibetan capital Lhasa has left 13 dead according to an official toll, while Tibetans in exile say scores if not hundreds have been killed in Tibet and other regions where anti-Beijing protests have broken out.

Italian media had earlier questioned the pope's silence on China's crackdown, speculating that the pontiff probably did not want to antagonize Beijing, with which relations have long been strained.

The Italian Roman Catholic church's SIR news agency said the pope's silence was not a "blunder" but "linked to the problem of having an already difficult dialogue with Beijing" over the religious freedom of Roman Catholics in China.

Beijing severed ties with the Vatican in 1951 in anger at the Holy See's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province.

In 1957, the split became permanent when China set up the Patriotic Association to formally oversee the country's officially registered Catholics.

The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and the pope met in October 2006, but an initially scheduled meeting in December was cancelled, in a decision that Italian media reports said facilitated the recent ordination of a new bishop in Guangdong, southern China, with the Vatican's approval.

The Dalai Lama had eight meetings with Benedict's long-serving predecessor John Paul II.