Senior officials of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Singapore said that while they understood the internal difficulties following the devastation of Cyclone Nargis, much more needed to be done to get international aid to stricken areas.

'There is a certain understanding (of the difficulties) but now we are talking about three, four, five days after it has happened and we would expect that this thing would be... dealt with in a better way,' said Janez Premoze, who headed the EU delegation.

Almost all delegates to the meeting of the 27-member ARF expressed their sympathies and offered assistance to Myanmar, Premoze said,

However, many of the officials also urged better coordination, including in issuing visas to foreign relief workers and getting supplies to affected areas.

Tens of thousands of people were killed and more than one million left homeless by the storm which struck the Irrawaddy Delta region a week ago.

Myanmar's ruling generals - deeply suspicious of the outside world - said the country needed outside aid but would deliver it themselves.

Singapore, the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said the senior officials stressed to fellow Asean member Myanmar the importance of speeding up the inflow of aid and its deployment.

'During the meeting, we suggested that the authorities in Myanmar could establish a coordinating mechanism that could work with the international community and aid agencies, to assess the damage and needs in the affected areas,' it said in a statement issued after Friday's meeting.

Such coordination would also 'facilitate in-country distribution of humanitarian assistance, and entry and deployment of rescue and medical personnel and equipment,' it said.

ARF is the biggest official security umbrella grouping in the Asia-Pacific comprising the 10 Asean states together with 17 others, including the United States, Russia, China, the European Union, North Korea, Australia, India and Pakistan. -- AFP