UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he has requested talks with senior Myanmar general Than Shwe over a humanitarian crisis in the country but nothing had been scheduled.
The United Nations believes that at least 1.5 million people in Myanmar have been "severely affected" by Cyclone Nargis and 100,000 are feared dead.
"I am trying to reach and talk directly to senior general Than Shwe of Myanmar to urge him to allow aid workers to deliver this urgent food aid with a sense of great urgency," Ban said during a visit to Atlanta.
"I have requested telephone talks with him ... nothing has been scheduled yet."
Ban urged the government of Myanmar to open its borders to aid and said UN relief workers should be exempted from all visa requirements.
In a separate statement issued by his office at the UN headquarters in New York, Ban suggested that it might be "prudent" for Myanmar's government to postpone a referendum on a military-drafted constitution because of the cyclone that has devastated the country.
Ban said he "has taken note of the government's decision to proceed with the constitutional referendum on 10 May, while postponing it in some of the areas most affected by the cyclone."
"Due to the scope of the disaster facing Myanmar today, however, the secretary general believes that it may be prudent to focus instead on mobilising all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts," the statement said.
US Navy ships on hand
Meanwhile US Navy ships steamed toward Myanmar in hopes of helping the stricken country's disaster relief effort, while senior US officials decried Yangon's slowness to accept outside aid.
US Air Force cargo planes loaded with supplies and personnel also began arriving in nearby Thailand, where US officials have established a staging point for possible humanitarian operations in the south.
"There is an opportunity here to save a lot of lives and we are fully prepared to help and to help right away, and it would be a tragedy if these assets - if people didn't take advantage of them," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters.
The Navy said four ships, including the destroyer USS Mustin and the three-vessel Essex Expeditionary Strike Force, had begun heading for Myanmar from the Gulf of Thailand after the Essex deployed helicopters to Thailand for possible relief operations.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the ships would arrive in the vicinity of Myanmar in roughly five days.
Earlier on Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said Washington was "outraged" by Myanmar's delays in allowing relief workers and aid shipments into devastated areas.
Ky Luu, director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID, said existing stocks of relief supplies in Myanmar might be enough for perhaps only 10,000 people.
He said one possibility would be to air-drop aid, but Gates and Mullen emphasised that no relief operations could occur without approval by the Myanmar government.
Anyone wishing to make a contribution to the cyclone relief effort can do so through various aid agencies. For details CLICK HERE
