The Dalai Lama said he would step down as head of Tibet's government-in-exile if that would stop bloodshed in his homeland, but China repeated its charge that he was the mastermind of a violent uprising.
His officials, based in the Indian Himalayan foothills, said they believed 99 people had died in clashes between Chinese security forces and Tibetans over the past week, including 19 today alone.
Chinese state-run media said more than 100 people had given themselves up to police after taking part in Tibet's most intense unrest against Chinese rule for nearly two decades.
Dalai Lama
Baima Chilin, vice chairman of the Chinese-run government of Tibet, said they had been "participants, and some were directly involved in beating, smashing, looting and arson".
Authorities had set a Monday midnight deadline for rioters to hand themselves in or face tougher punishment if caught.
Premier Wen Jiabao defended the crackdown on Lhasa, capital of the mainly Buddhist mountain region, and on ethnic Tibetan areas of neighbouring provinces where protests have erupted.
"There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," Mr Wen told a news conference in Beijing.
"This has all the more revealed the consistent claims by the Dalai clique that they pursue not independence but peaceful dialogue are nothing but lies."
The Dalai Lama who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, denied the charges and said he would quit as political leader of the exiled Tibetan movement if the violence got out of hand.
"Please help stop violence from Chinese side and also from Tibetan side," the Nobel peace laureate told a news conference in Dharamsala, northern India. "If things become out of control then my only option is to completely resign."
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has said he cannot give up his role as Dalai Lama, the reincarnated spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. He says he does not seek independence for Tibet but wants autonomy within China, which sent troops into the region in 1950.
After days of anti-China protests led by monks, the unrest in Lhasa turned violent on Friday.
Mobs attacked non-Tibetan Chinese in the streets and set fire to shops and cars, in scenes sure to horrify a Chinese Communist leadership anxious to present an image of national harmony in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics.
The Dalai Lama's spokesman Tenzin Taklha said the rioting had spread fast. "This was very spontaneous," he said.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen told a US Congressional advisory panel hearing Washington had seen no evidence rioting was orchestrated by the Dalai Lama.