A key member of an international advisory panel on Myanmar’s crisis-hit Rakhine state has resigned. Announcing his decision, Kobsak Chutikul, a retired ambassador and former member of Thailand’s parliament said the panel had been kept on a short leash and achieved little in the six months since its formation in January. Kobsak was secretary for the panel hand-picked by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The panel was set up by the Myanmar government to advise it on how to implement the recommendations of an earlier commission, headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on solving the crisis in its western Rakhine.  Earlier, veteran US diplomat Governor Bill Richardson a one-time close confidant of Suu Kyi had resigned from the panel.
Myanmar faced renewed criticism from human rights investigators over the exodus of around 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled a sweeping army crackdown last year in Rakhine state that the U.N. has termed “ethnic cleansing”.