DHAKA: Myanmar on Thursday said it would look into incendiary comments by the country’s most notorious hardline monk who branded a UN envoy a ‘whore’ after strong condemnation from the United Nation’s, but indicated it was unlikely to act against the cleric.

Influential cleric Wirathu rained insults on United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Yanghee Lee in a firebrand speech to cheering supporters, calling her a ‘whore in our country’ for criticising controversial draft bills considered discriminatory to women and minorities, reports The Straits Times.

The UN’s human rights chief said the comments, which come amid rising Buddhist nationalism in diverse but conflict-prone Myanmar, were ‘intolerable’, in a strongly-worded statement to the former junta-run nation.

‘The sexist, insulting language used against the UN’s independent human rights expert on Myanmar... is utterly unacceptable,’ UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement issued Wednesday.

BDST: 1900 HRS, JAN 22, 2015