KATHMANDU, March 14: Nepal will block access to Mount Everest in early May to prevent pro-Tibetan protests while China takes the Olympic torch to the roof of the world, the tourism minister said on Friday.

“Expedition teams will not be allowed to move from Nepal’s Everest base camp from May 1 to May 10,” said the minister, Prithvi Subba Gurung.

The 8,848-metre (29,028-feet) mountain straddles the border between Nepal and Chinese-controlled Tibet.

A northern route runs through Tibet with the southern route through Nepal. “We have received a request from China not to allow people on the mountain while the Olympic torch is on Everest,” the minister said.

The China Tibet Mountaineering Association said this week that overcrowding and environmental pressures meant they had to ask all commercial expeditions to stay off the mountain on the Tibetan approach until after May 10.

But mountaineering officials in Beijing denied that a ban had been put in place.—AFP