The United Nations said today that Burma has invited a UN envoy to visit the cyclone-ravaged country.
The invitation to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative on Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, came in a letter from the junta's UN envoy, Ambassador Kyaw Tint Swe, to Vietnamese Ambassador Le Luong Minh, president of the UN Security Council for the month of July.
A UN spokeswoman said the date and objectives of Mr Gambari's visit had not been set but that he was expected to go to Burma in mid-August.
Security Council diplomats in New York say that enough time has past since Cyclone Nargis hit the country two months ago, leaving 138,000 dead or missing, and that it is time to increase the pressure on the junta to comply with council demands that it improve the state of human rights and democracy.
At their summit in Japan last week, Group of Eight leaders called on Burma's secretive military government to lift remaining restrictions on the flow of aid and improve access for foreign aid workers, initially shut out of the country.
Shortly before the summit, G8 foreign ministers issued a statement urging Burma "to foster a peaceful transition to a legitimate, democratic, civilian government . . .
[and] to cooperate fully with Special Adviser Ibrahim Gambari."
In May, weeks after Cyclone Nargis, the military junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, angering Western nations who had promised millions of dollars in aid to help the country deal with the aftermath of the cyclone.
Reuters