US offers $3 mn in aid for Myanmar

WASHINGTON: The White House announced on Tuesday it was offering three million dollars in aid to help Myanmar recover from a deadly cyclone.

"The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated an additional three millions dollars in funding" to help Myanmar meet "urgent needs," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"This brings the total in US assistance to 3.25 million dollars to date, which will be allocated by the USAID disaster assistance response team, also know as DART, that is currently pre-positionned in Bangkok awaiting permission to enter Burma," she said, referring to Myanmar's former name.

"We urge the government of Burma to grant full access to the affected areas to international humanitarian relief teams and non-governmental organizations," Perino said.

The State Department, which announced Monday that the embassy in Yangon was offering an initial 250,000 dollars in aid, said it was not immediately clear whether the team would get the all-clear to travel to Myanmar from Bangkok.

"We have applied for visas with the Burmese government, have yet to receive permission for our disaster relief people to travel in there," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

The DART team would provide a valuable contribution to the relief effort, he said.

"When you have people on the ground, you are better able to assess exactly what the needs are and what our capabilities might be. So it increases efficiencies," the spokesman said.