  The idea that effective string tension increases as a result of the hard
gluon kinks on a string is applied to study the strange particle production in
proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. It is found that the effective
string tension increases with the increase of centrality and mass of the
colliding system as a consequence of the mini-(gluon)jet production stemming
from the collective string-string interaction. This mechanism leads to
strangeness enhancement in pA and AA collisions through the enhanced production
of the strange quark pairs from the color field of strings. We discuss
different roles played by this mechanism and rescattering of the final state
hadrons in the production of strange particles and compare our results with
experimental data.
