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 Officers blockaded streets into the area, allowing in only area residents and worshippers observing the Muslim day of prayer. A heavy security presence continued in other parts of Lhasa's old city as cleanup crews waded through the destruction inflicted when days of initially peaceful protests turned deadly on March 14.
It was not clear why the area was cordoned off, although rioters had targeted businesses belonging to Chinese Muslim migrants known as Hui, who control much of Lhasa's commerce.
The protests were the most-sustained challenge to China's rule in the Himalayan region since 1989. The ensuing crackdown by Chinese authorities has focused international attention on China's human rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games.
China has faced growing calls from the United States and other nations to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, along with suggestions from some leaders that they were considering boycotting the Olympics' opening ceremony to protest Beijing's handling of the Tibetan situation.
Apparently because of the pressure, the Foreign Ministry is allowing a group of foreign diplomats to visit Lhasa on Friday and Saturday.
A U.S. diplomat will join the trip, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said. She had no other details.
A small group of foreign journalists, including an Associated Press reporter, was taken to Lhasa earlier in the week on a three-day government-organized trip that ended Friday.
The otherwise tightly scripted visit was disrupted when 30 red-robed monks pushed into a briefing being given by officials at the Jokhang Temple on Thursday, complaining of a lack of religious freedom and denouncing official claims that the Dalai Lama orchestrated the March 14 violence.
"What the government is saying is not true," one monk shouted out.
"They killed many people," another monk said, referring to Chinese security forces.
The outburst by the monks lasted for about 15 minutes before government officials ended it and told the journalists it was "time to go."
China has strenuously argued that the widespread arson and looting were criminal acts orchestrated by separatists, while refusing to discuss the root causes of the anger and alienation blamed for sparking the violence.
A vice governor of Tibet, Baima Chilin, later told reporters the monks would not be punished.
However, Tibet activists voiced concern Friday over possible Chinese government retaliation against the Buddhist monks.
"There are serious fears for the welfare and whereabouts" of the monks, the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.
"The monks' peaceful protest shattered the authorities' plans to convey an image that the situation in Lhasa was under control after recent demonstrations and rioting," it said.
Other than the incident at the Jokhang Temple, one of Tibetan Buddhism's holiest shrines, most of the second day of the tour went according to plan, with officials sticking to the government line that the protests were plotted by supporters of the Dalai Lama to sabotage the upcoming Olympics.
On Friday, the Dalai Lama again denied China's accusations, saying he has repeatedly supported Beijing's hosting of the Summer Games. In a statement released from his headquarters in northern India, he also said that he has "no desire to seek Tibet's separation. Nor do I have any wish to drive a wedge between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples."
But he raised concerns that China's portrayal of the protests in Lhasa, focusing on attacks by Tibetans against Han Chinese, was fanning the flames of ethnic conflict.
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 "The state media's portrayal of the recent events in Tibet, using deceit and distorted images, could sow the seeds of racial tension with unpredictable long-term consequences. This is of grave concern to me," he said.
The protests had started out peacefully among monks in Lhasa on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. But four days later, they spiraled into violence. Tibetans torched hundreds of buildings and attacked members of China's dominant Han ethnic group and Hui Muslims.
A staffer at the China Tibet Information Center said there are an estimated 1,500 Muslims in Lhasa. Officials with the Lhasa government and Religious Affairs Bureau said they did not know how many Muslims were in the city.
The government says at least 22 people have died in Lhasa; Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans were killed, including 19 in Gansu province.
One of the monks protesting Thursday said the death toll was far higher than the government was saying, but did not give the source of his information.
"The cadres and the army killed more than 100 Tibetans. They arrested more than a thousand," he said.
After the 1989 uprising in Lhasa, Tibetans claimed many more Tibetans died than the official toll of 16 because families feared punishment if participants went to hospitals.
Fu Jun, head of the News Affairs Office of the Propaganda Department of the Tibet Communist Party, said Friday that the monks were spreading rumors.
"We are keeping an open mind about their complaints. The rumor is misleading the media without a shred of evidence. ... We will clear up facts in a few days' time when appropriate," Fu said.
State TV, which has widely covered the foreign journalists' tour, showed the Jokhang visit on its evening newscast, but not the monks' outburst.
Journalists were taken Friday morning to interview members of the Communist Party-run Buddhist Association, who reiterated the Chinese accusations against the Dalai Lama.
"This was premeditated," said Drubkang, a member of Beijing's top government advisory body, who like many Tibetans uses just one name.
Drubkang also criticized the many young monks who have taken part in protests in Lhasa and neighboring Chinese provinces.
"They've been violating the country's laws and Buddhist canon, and they want to politicize religious practice," he said.
[Associated
Press; By CHARLES HUTZLER]
Charles Hutzler, Beijing bureau chief for The Associated Press, was among a group of foreign journalists taken on a government-arranged trip to the Tibetan city of Lhasa.
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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