UN chief meets Myanmar prime minister

YANGON: UN chief Ban Ki-moon met Thursday with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, in a high-profile diplomatic push to press the junta to accept a full-scale relief operation for cyclone survivors.

The two men met for about 20 minutes at the Sedona Hotel in Myanmar's main city of Yangon, according to a reporter here.

They are scheduled to meet again for dinner later Thursday, after Ban returns from a helicopter tour of the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, the nation's most important rice-growing region where entire villages were wiped out.

Ban's most important meeting during his trip, with junta leader Than Shwe, is set for Friday in the military's remote capital of Naypyidaw, according to Myanmar officials.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 133,000 people dead or missing, and around two million people are still waiting for international aid - food, water, shelter and medicine - three weeks after the storm.

Myanmar insists that it can deliver aid on its own, but residents in some of the remote villages of the delta have told that the government and foreign relief groups have not delivered any emergency supplies.