Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not give Western relief workers unfettered access to disaster areas, Singapore said yesterday.

"We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar," Foreign Minister George Yeo said.

He was speaking after hosting a regional meeting to prod the generals to accept large-scale foreign aid and expertise for up to 2.4 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis.

The details were to be worked out with the United Nations, which announced later yesterday that a donor conference would be held in the cyclone-hit former capital, Yangon, on May 25.

Myanmar agreed to accept nearly 300 medical personnel from its neighbours in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the foreign ministers said in a statement.

A few have already sent teams two weeks after the disaster which left 134,000 dead or missing. But aid workers from outside Asean will only be granted visas on a case-by-case basis.

"We have to look at specific needs - there will not be uncontrolled access," Mr Yeo said after the meeting which named ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan to work with the UN on aid delivery.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to fly to Yangon tomorrow to tour the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta and attend the donors' meeting co-chaired by Asean.

Humanitarian agencies say the death toll from Nargis, one of the most devastating cyclones to hit Asia, could soar without a massive increase of emergency food, water, shelter and medicine to the delta, the country's rice bowl.