(OSLO) - An EU envoy on Friday criticised Myanmar's constitutional referendum, held as millions of homeless cyclone victims awaited help, saying it would not solve the political problems of the military-ruled country.

"The referendum does not resolve the political situation in Myanmar," said Piero Fassino, the European Union's special envoy to the poverty-stricken Asian nation, in the bloc's first official reaction to the results.

"The referendum was without real democratic guarantees," he told reporters on a visit to Oslo.

"The situation in Myanmar can be resolved only if the junta accepts dialogue with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with representatives of (ethnic) communities, and with different representatives of the civil and religious society."

Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for much of the time since she won the country's last national ballot by a landslide in 1990.

Fassino spoke a day after Myanmar's rulers announced that 92 percent of voters had backed its constitutional proposals, which critics say will strengthen their hold on power.

The United States government on Thursday reiterated its "strong concerns about the legitimacy of the constitution and referendum."

Meanwhile the death toll from Cyclone Nargos two weeks after it devastated the country's southern Irrawaddy Delta rose to more than 77,000, according to state television on Friday.

Fassino reiterated a call for Myanmar's rulers to let more foreign aid into the country. The United Nations estimates some two million victims of the cyclone are in need of help.

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