U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday 20.05.2008 said the United Nations has received permission from Myanmar to use nine helicopters to carry aid to stranded victims.

“We have received government permission to operate nine WFP (World Food Program) helicopters, which will allow us to reach areas that have so far been largely inaccessible,” Ban told reporters in New York before departing on a trip to Myanmar.

“I believe further similar moves will follow, including expediting the visas of (foreign) relief workers seeking to enter the country,” Ban said. “I’m confident that emergency relief efforts can be scaled up quickly.”

Myanmar agreed on Monday (19.05.08) to let its Southeast Asian neighbours help coordinate foreign relief assistance for cyclone victims.

Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not give Western relief workers unfettered access to disaster areas, Singapore said on Monday.

The details were to be worked out with the United Nations, which announced later on Monday that a donor conference would be held in the cyclone-hit former capital, Yangon, on May 25.

“We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar,” Singapore’s foreign minister, George Yeo said, speaking at an emergency meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, which includes Myanmar. “Myanmar is also prepared to accept the expertise of international and regional agencies to help in its rehabilitation efforts,” he told a news conference.

Myanmar agreed to accept nearly 300 medical personnel from its neighbors in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the foreign ministers said in a statement. But aid workers from outside ASEAN will only be granted visas on a case-by-case basis.

Mr Yeo said that Myanmar had agreed to allow in medical teams from any of its nine neighbors in Asean. Thailand has already sent a contingent of more than 30 medical workers.

In Tokyo, Burmese ambassador told the foreign ministry it would allow Japanese relief workers in to help victims, a ministry official said.

In addition, Myanmar has allowed in 50 medical workers from India. A team of 50 Chinese medics arrived in Yangon Sunday night.

Mr. Yeo rejected the idea of aid delivery by force. “That will create unnecessary complication,” he said at the news conference. “It will only lead to more suffering for Myanmar people.”

Speaking in London after weekend talks in Myanmar, British Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown said Western nations will support efforts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to lead the aid effort in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. British Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander welcomed ASEAN’s initiative.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was due to travel to Yangon this week in hopes of meeting the country’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. Asked by reporters before his departure whether he would meet Than Shwe, Ban said: “I will be, I hope I will be meeting Senior General Than Shwe and other senior government officials.”

Mr. Ban has called for a “high-level pledging conference” to deal with the crisis and for cooperation between the United Nations and Southeast Asian countries in overseeing aid delivery.

Singapore’s foreign minister Mr. Yeo said that ASEAN would work with the United Nations to hold such a conference in Yangon on May 25 to coordinate aid deliveries.

It also reported the U.N.’s chief humanitarian officer, John Holmes, visited devastated Labutta and Bogalay townships with government officials.

Holmes met Prime Minister Thein Sein on Tuesday and deliver a message from Ban to the generals.

There are still a lot of supplies needed to get in the future in terms of food, but not just for now but for some months to come,” U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Thein Sein.

He said military-run camps in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta for the homeless “seemed well organized” but most survivors were still without shelter.

Holmes said he had discussed the use of helicopters with the general, who “took note” of his suggestion.

“I hope we can reach agreement on that,” Holmes said. “I think the use of more helicopters from outside would be most welcome.”

On Monday, state radio announced a three-day mourning period for cyclone victims, beginning on Tuesday.

The army’s declaration of a mourning period after the first visit on Monday to the delta since the cyclone by 75-year-old junta supremo Than Shwe, was taken as a possible sign the leadership had woken up to the scale of the catastrophe.

On Sunday, state television showed the bespectacled 74-year-old Senior General in Yangon, the city he deserted in 2005 for a remote new capital 250 miles to the north. meeting ministers involved in the rescue effort.

“It is not insignificant that he has been forced out of his lair,” one Yangon diplomat said. “There are obviously some in the military who see how enormous this is, and how enormously wrong it could go without further support.”