COLOMBO, June 26: A key Muslim party threatened on Sunday to resign from the Sri Lankan government over a controversial deal to share tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels. The National Unity Alliance said it would quit the ruling coalition in two days unless the president drops a deal clinched with the Tigers on Friday to distribute billions of dollars in tsunami aid from international donors.

“We have decided to give the government 48 hours’ notice and thereafter we will leave,” deputy leader M.L.M. Hizbullah said, adding that as a first step he quit the politically-appointed post of chief of airports.

The influential Muslim Council of Sri Lanka joined the growing opposition to the aid deal. It decided at a meeting on Sunday to ask the international community to press the government to include it as equal partners with the rebels.

Kumaratunga has already lost her majority in parliament following the withdrawal of support earlier this month by Marxist allies. They say the agreement legitimises the rebels,

However the main opposition United National Party has said it will support Kumaratunga to ensure implementation of the aid-sharing pact with the Tigers, who waged a 30-year armed conflict until an Oslo-brokered truce in February 2002.

Hizbullah said the concerns of Muslims, the country’s second largest minority after the Tamils, had been ignored and they lacked sufficient representation in the aid deal.

Muslims account for about 7.5 per cent of the 19.5 million population. The majority Sinhalese represent 70 per cent while the rest are ethnic Tamils.

The government and Tamil Tiger rebels ended months of secret negotiations by sealing the deal to jointly distribute foreign aid in guerilla-held areas.

The agreement came six months after giant waves destroyed much of the coastal infrastructure, killing 31,000 people and initially leaving a million homeless.

Donors have pledged three billion dollars to rebuild Sri Lanka, twice the amount the government says it needs. But only a fraction of this has been received because of the delay in setting up the aid deal.

There has been little or no reconstruction work in rebel-held areas while in the rest of the country most of the clearing has been completed and rebuilding is already under way.

Despite Friday’s signing the authorities have yet to name members to run the joint mechanism.

Other parties may also withdraw support for the pact because of concerns about it.

—AFP