Amanda Pitt, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a press conference in Bangkok: “I think they want 160 personnel from these four places, just general personnel who are able to come in to bolster the Myanmar [Burmese] government’s relief efforts.”

Burma’s military government has given permission to a Thai medical team to enter the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta.

Dr. Thawat Sutharacha of the Public Health Ministry told The Associate Press that he has received a message from the Burmese Health Ministry that says the Thai team can conduct medical work.

If the team departs as scheduled on Friday, it will be the first foreign aid group to work in the Irrawaddy delta.

The junta has declared the area off-limits to foreign relief workers.

Bangladesh, China, India and Thailand all share their border with Burma, and have been less critical of Burma’s military regime than many Western democracies, some of which have imposed economic sanctions on the country to punish the junta’s frequent crack downs on pro-democracy demonstrations and its refusal to allow democratic reforms.