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YANGON : UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday the eyes of the world were now on Myanmar after pushing the secretive military regime to accept a major relief effort for survivors of the cyclone disaster.
After more than two hours of talks with military leader Than Shwe, Ban said he had convinced him to agree to accept foreign disaster experts -- three weeks after the storm left at least 133,000 people dead or missing.
Fast Facts
Ban said he was encouraged by his talks with the military regime's top general -- who had refused to take his calls after the storm hit -- but said Myanmar now had to back up its pledges with concrete progress on the ground.
"The world is watching," he told a news conference in the main city Yangon. "Implementation will be the key."
He said 2.4 million survivors were in need of emergency aid, which has been held up by Myanmar's refusal to let foreign disaster experts into the country as well as logistical bottle-necks in the complicated aid operation.
Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country's southern Irrawaddy Delta on May 2-3, wiping out entire villages and laying waste to critical rice-growing areas just weeks before the next planting season begins.
"Flying over the Irrawaddy delta yesterday (Thursday), I saw the saddest things... We work hard in our lives for ourselves and our families -- and then in a moment, it is gone," Ban said.
"I am humbled -- humbled by the scale of this natural disaster."
Deeply suspicious of the outside world's motives, Than Shwe and the military have been wary of letting in large numbers of outsiders and have rejected aid from French and US naval ships in nearby waters that are loaded with supplies.
But Ban said he had told Than Shwe that "more needs to be done" to get a full-scale relief operation up to speed, with aid groups warning that more people will die unless they get assistance immediately.
"I specifically asked the government to liberalise visa policies and to grant unhindered access to foreign aid experts and also journalists so they can operate freely and effectively to help Myanmar," Ban said.
"He has taken quite a flexible position on an issue that until now has been an obstacle to organising coordinated and fully effective international aid and assistance operations," the UN chief said.
"I hope all these agreements can produce results quickly."
He met reporters here after a trip to Than Shwe's remote bunker capital of Naypyidaw , where the general stayed out of public view for more than two weeks after the cyclone.
There was no immediate confirmation of the deal from Myanmar, one of the poorest and most isolated countries on the planet.
While welcoming thousands of tonnes of donated supplies, the regime has been blocking visas for foreign experts and has insisted reports of survivors not getting enough aid were the work of "traitors".
The agreement came on day two of Ban's landmark visit -- the first by a UN secretary general here in more than four decades.
Aid groups cautiously welcomed the news but stressed that the handful of foreign aid workers already in the country had largely been limited to Yangon and kept away from the devastated delta.
"The important issue is whether we can leave Yangon or not," Paul Risley, spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme, said in neighbouring Thailand.
Ban arrived back in Thailand late Friday, ahead of a trip to China's earthquake zone on Saturday.
He will return to Myanmar on Sunday for an international conference of donor nations contributing to the Myanmar relief effort.
The break means he will not be on Myanmar soil when the regime holds the next round of voting in a referendum on a new constitution -- a vote criticised for being held with the nation still in the midst of the cyclone catastrophe.
The vote to approve a new constitution is the first in Myanmar since a general election in 1990, when opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party won in a landslide but she was placed under house arrest.
The first round was held one week after the storm hit. The regime said 92 percent of the people voted in favour of the charter, which would ban Aung San Suu Kyi from ever holding office.
- AFP /ls
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