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BANGKOK - International aid groups reacted cautiously Friday to the announcement that Myanmar would allow all foreign relief workers into the country, stressing that details on the ground were still unclear.
While they welcomed the news following talks between military leader Than Shwe and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the groups said that the relief effort needed more than simply foreigners flying in to the main city Yangon.
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"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.
The secretive military has all but sealed off the southern Irrawaddy Delta hardest hit by the May 2-3 storm, which left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and around 2.5 million in dire need of immediate aid.
Relief organisations have said that outside experts are needed to oversee the complicated disaster management operations, and that until now mostly local staff -- not foreigners -- have been let into the disaster zone.
"We still have to clarify what this means -- who can get in, who can go where," said John Sparrow of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Does it mean that the people we have standing by can enter the country? Does it mean we can gear up and go full throttle?" Sparrow said. "It isn't clear right now."
"We're cautiously optimistic but we have to see how it works in practical terms," said James East, spokesman for World Vision -- one of dozens of aid groups whose work has been restricted by the Myanmar military regime.
"The debate for the last couple of weeks has been about politics and the politics of humanitarian aid," East told AFP. "Hopefully we've moved beyond that to say: Let's just help the people."
Making the first visit to Myanmar by a UN secretary general in more than four decades, Ban held talks with Than Shwe and later told reporters that he had agreed to let in all foreign aid workers.
"He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities," the UN chief said.
The international aid organization CARE said the announcement "could be a turning point in the aid response."
"CARE has several emergency experts ready to deploy to Myanmar to provide their assistance to the people in need," said its Myanmar country director Brian Agland in a statement.
Rebecca Gustafson, a spokeswoman with the US government's relief arm USAID, said the news sounded positive but wanted to know more.
The United States and France have naval vessels in nearby waters laden with relief supplies, but Myanmar has refused to let them in -- and it was not immediately clear if that situation would change.
"We have a vast capacity within the US government to assure that that aid gets to people as quickly as possible and we want to make sure we can help do that with the international community," Gustafson said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was negotiating with the military for the delivery of 1,500 tonnes of aid from a naval ship, The Mistral, lying off the Irrawaddy delta for nearly a week.
"It seems that what worries them is the military nature of the French vessel," he said.
UN aid agencies said boats would be crucial in delivering relief to people stranded on hundreds of small islands -- some natural and some created by the flooding.
Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman with the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "We would like to get more experts on board, this is not the quantity, this is the quality," she stressed.
EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel said he was "relieved" by the announcement.
"It is now clear that our joint diplomatic efforts have delivered concrete results," said Michel.
But British aid organisation Oxfam said it was still only the first hurdle that had been cleared.
"We would like to see all these restrictions lifted because it is a race against time to get aid to the people who desperately need it," said regional director Sarah Ireland.
Regional leaders Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono welcomed the move, while Thailand's foreign ministry said it was a sign the military regime in Myanmar was "relaxing and gradually improving its attitude."
- AFP /ls
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