ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By LALIT K JHA / UNITED NATIONS | UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with the ambassadors of India, China and Indonesia and UN Special Envoy on Burma Ibrahim Gambari on Thursday to discuss the political and humanitarian situation in Burma.

Ban is scheduled to make a two-week trip to Asia during which he will visit Japan, Korea and China and attend the G-8 Summit in Japan, where the Burma issue is expected to be raised by US President George W Bush.

The meeting was attended by Nirupam Sen, India's Permanent Representative to the UN and his Indonesia counterpart, Marty Natalegawa. China was represented by Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Liu Zhenmin.

Earlier in the day, Ban told reporters that he would continue to engage in dialogue with Burma through Gambari, as mandated by the UN General Assembly.

Gambari is scheduled to visit Burma in July. He is also expected to visit some of Burma’s neighboring countries and other key countries in the region.

"We will continue to widen and deepen this process," said Ban, who visited Burma in May in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, during which he met with Sen-Gen Than Shwe.

Responding to a question on the humanitarian aid effort, Ban said: "I think the Myanmar [Burma] authorities are moving toward the right direction to allow international aid workers and UN staff to deliver humanitarian assistance."

Ban said 10 UN helicopters now working with the World Food Programme are making a great difference in delivering humanitarian assistance. "In that regard, we will continuously monitor and coordinate with the Myanmar authorities," he said.

"The tripartite mechanisms among the UN, Asean and Myanmar [Burma] are also functioning well. We are going to have a revised appeal for recovery and immediate humanitarian assistance sometime in July," Ban said.