MUTTUR (Sri Lanka), April 18: Muslim and Tamil mobs clashed in eastern Sri Lanka on Friday, witnesses said, as cabinet ministers met to solve the latest crisis threatening the island’s peace bid ahead of a huge donors’ meeting set for Tokyo.

Police fired tear gas to keep the crowds apart in the eastern area of Muttur, 230 kms east of Colombo, the site of increased tension between Muslims and mostly Hindu Tamils after the alleged abduction of two youths by Tamil Tiger rebels.

“It was very tense, but after Friday prayers and after a daytime curfew was imposed, things have calmed down,” said Teitur Torkelsson, a spokesman for the Nordic monitors who oversee the ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The clashes, which left two dead, have highlighted long-standing friction in Sri Lanka’s volatile east that officials say must be reduced if a bid to end the island’s two-decade war is to go ahead.

“If this escalates, this could affect the peace process very negatively,” said Muslim Affairs Minister Rauff Hakeem, a member of the island’s peace negotiating team who is under pressure to pull his Sri Lanka Muslim Congress party out of the government.

As Hakeem spoke at an army camp near Muttur, gunfire could be heard from outside.

“The government must take full responsibility for the security of Muslims. I’m under tremendous pressure from my politburo to leave the government,” he said.

If Hakeem’s party left the government, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a driving force behind the peace process, would have to rely on a Tamil party to keep his majority in parliament.

The clashes and political worries come as Wickremesinghe and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who signed a truce in February 2002, prepare for a donors’ conference in Tokyo in June to raise money to rebuild war-hit parts of the island.

Military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne said Defence Minister Tilak Marapana met local Muslim and Tamil officials, along with Hakeem, to try to ease the tension.

“There was some gunfire by Tamils but we do not know who,” he said, adding at least seven people had been wounded in clashes on Thursday.—Reuters