SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Cyclone-stricken Myanmar will accept medical workers from Southeast Asian countries to help with the relief effort and is ready to accept international aid agencies, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said on Monday.
"Myanmar will accept international assistance," SingaporeForeign Minister George Yeo told a news conference after ameeting of the bloc in the city-state. He said that Myanmar hadagreed to accept medical teams from all ASEAN countries.
"We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all overthe world can flow into Myanmar," he said. However, the entryof aid workers from outside ASEAN would be on a case-by-casebasis.
"We have to look at specific needs -- there will not beuncontrolled access," he said.
Yeo said the cost of the devastation caused by CycloneNargis was "well over $10 billion (5 billion pounds)". Thecyclone struck Myanmar two weeks ago, leaving 134,000 dead andmissing and 2.4 million destitute.
Humanitarian agencies say the death toll, already one ofthe most devastating cyclones to hit Asia, could soar without amassive increase of emergency food, water shelter and medicineto the worst-hit region, the Irrawaddy Delta.
"We always welcomed international aid. We (have) notdelayed," Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win told reporters.
Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, said afterMonday's meeting that each ASEAN country would send a team of30 medical personnel "very soon" with unrestricted movement inthe country.
The 10-member group also said Myanmar should allow moreinternational relief workers into stricken areas, though itsaid international assistance should not be politicised.
(Reporting by Melanie Lee, Neil Chatterjee, Jan Dahintenand Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Alex Richardson)
