US diplomat Bill Richardson resigned early Thursday from an Aung San Suu Kyi-appointed panel set up to ease communal tensions in Myanmar's Rakhine State and hit out at the Nobel Laureate for an "absence of moral leadership" over the crisis. In a statement that pulled few punches, the former governor and one-time Suu Kyi ally said he could not in "good conscience" serve on the committee.
Richardson also accused Suu Kyi of a "furious response" to his calls to help free two Reuters journalists arrested while reporting on the Rakhine crisis.
Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested in December and face up to 14 years in jail under the Official Secrets Act over the alleged possession of classified documents, purportedly relating to the army campaign in Rakhine.
His resignation came after Myanmar and Bangladesh failed to meet a January 23 deadline to begin the complex and contested repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees.
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