Cyclone-hit Myanmar seeks 5.6 bln pounds in aid

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government wants more than $11 billion (5.6 billion pounds) in aid for cyclone victims, but international donors need access to verify their needs, a top Southeast Asian diplomat said on Wednesday.

ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan also said a Myanmar cabinet minister told him that French oil giant Total SA was willing to transfer aid and equipment from French and U.S. Navy ships waiting in waters near the former Burma.

Minister of Planning and Economic Development Soe Tha "told us Total is going to do the transfer" of aid from the ships, Surin said in an interview with Reuters.

Details of how the supplies would be transferred -- by helicopter or other means -- were not discussed, the Secretary-General of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said.

Total could not immediately be reached for comment.

The French firm, one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar, operates the offshore Yadana gas field and a pipeline that runs to the shore and overland to neighbouring Thailand.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was due in Yangon on Thursday, said relief workers had so far been able to reach only a quarter of those in need among an estimated 2.4 million people made destitute by the May 2 storm and sea surge that left nearly 134,000 dead or missing.

ASEAN is convening a donor conference jointly with the United Nations on Sunday, amid criticism in the West that too few foreign aid experts have been allowed into the stricken Irrawaddy Delta to establish aid distribution networks.

Surin said the military government is seeking $11 billion in pledged aid from the conference.