EU drops Myanmar rights resolution

The European Union praised Myanmar's progress on human rights under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday and said that it would not be introducing a resolution at the United Nations condemning the country's record for the first time in 15 years.

Addressing the Partnership Group on Myanmar at the United Nations General Assembly, EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini called Suu Kyi's progress from political prisoner to government "powerful testimony to the incredible change Myanmar is going through."

"The government has taken bold measures to improve human rights and re-invigorate the peace process. Political prisoners have been released," she said.

Mogherini said steps had also "been taken against those who incite hatred" and a commission established under former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to address violence between majority Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar's state of Rakhine.

In recognition of the progress, for the first time in fifteen years, the European Union would not table a human rights resolution on Myanmar at the U.N. assembly, she said.

Around 125,000 Rohingya remain confined in temporary camps after waves of deadly violence in 2012 between Buddhists and Muslims, when more than 100 people were killed.