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JAKARTA: ASEAN foreign ministers will meet in Singapore on May 19 to assess the group's response to the cyclone disaster in member country Myanmar, Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said on Monday.
The ministers will discuss a disaster assessment report from a team of ASEAN experts which Myanmar has agreed to allow into the country to assess the damage from Cyclone Nargis, he said.
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"It's never too late," Surin told AFP, rejecting criticism of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations for failing to do enough to convince Myanmar's secretive military rulers to open its borders to foreign aid .
"There are 1.5 million people still teetering between suffering and survival and we need to help them."
He said the composition of the assessment team had yet to be worked out and the junta had not issued them visas, but the fact that the generals had agreed to allow them into the country was a positive development.
"We can see that the authorities are beginning to relax a bit and that is a good sign," he said.
"We are working with the realities on the ground and with the limitations that we have. We are trying to get around a lot of sensitivities and a lot of hesitations."
He said it was too early even to say whether the ASEAN team would have free access to all areas of the disaster zone, particularly the southern Irrawaddy Delta.
But he said the regional grouping was still hoping to lead the international aid effort.
"I think the signs are quite positive that ASEAN will be taking a very active and leading role in the architecture of mercy," Surin said.
State television raised the death toll from Cyclone Nargis by some 3,480 to 31,938 on Monday, with another 29,770 still missing.
The United Nations says more than 100,000 are likely to have been killed.
Up to two million people are said to have been affected by the disaster and aid workers fear a second catastrophe unless the homeless and vulnerable receive immediate assistance. - AFP/de
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