Dalai Lama urges Buddhists to halt violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka, Myanmar

Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has issued a fresh appeal to Buddhists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to halt their violence against Muslims.

Addressing tens of thousands of Tibetan and Buddhist devotees on the occasion of his 79th birthday, including Hollywood film star Richard Gere, the Dalai Lama said violence in both Buddhist-majority countries targeting religious minority Muslims was unacceptable.

News24 quoted the Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, as saying in Leh, Ladakh, that Lord Buddha, during his lifetime, preached love and compassion, and it was the duty and reponsibility of his followers to follow suit.

The Dalai Lama also expressed shock at a wave of deadly violence by Sunni militants against fellow Muslims, but did not specifically refer to Iraq, where ISIL militants have overrun swathes of five provinces north and west of Baghdad.

Inter-communal violence in Myanmar has overshadowed widely-praised political reforms since erupting in 2012. It has largely targeted Muslims, leaving at least 250 people dead.

Last month in Sri Lanka, four people were killed and hundreds of shops and homes damaged in the island's worst religious violence in recent decades.

The Dalai Lama celebrated his birthday at his residence on the outskirts of Leh in Ladakh, a mainly Buddhist region. He was in Ladakh to confer Kalachakra, a Buddhist process that empowers tens of thousands of his disciples to attain enlightenment.