Myanmar Agrees to Accept Foreign Aid Workers

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Myanmar has agreed to let foreign aid workers into the country to help cyclone survivors.

The announcement was made after Ban met with Myanmar leader Senior-General Than Shwe in the country's new capital Nay Pyi Taw.

The UN chief said his meeting with Myanmar leaders was a breakthrough. He said Myanmar has now agreed to allow aid workers into the country regardless of their nationality.

He also urged Myanmar to let foreign aid agencies in as soon as possible.

"I am sure that Prime Minister Thein Sein during a conference may make some comments vis-a-vis these issues. I urged him that it would be crucially important for him to allow aid workers as swiftly as possible and all these aid relief items also be delivered to the needy people as soon as possible."

Myanmar also agreed to make Yangon the logistics hub of the aid operation, which Ban called "an important development".

Meanwhile, international aid agencies received the news with measured optimism.

John Sparrow of the International Committee of the Red Cross said his people must be able to get to the affected areas and take charge of aid distribution.

"The best case scenario would be that those people who we need to go in can go in and they can go to the affected areas and operate. It's important that they can take charge of distributions, for example, that they can operate the water purification plants, et cetera. It would not help the effort much if all they could do would be to be present. They have to be able to do what they do very well."

Nearly 80,000 people were killed when a strong cyclone hit Myanmar early this month. Some 2.5 million survivors are said to be at risk of disease, starvation and exposure to monsoon rains.