(BANGKOK) - The world must not allow the rush to help Myanmar with relief efforts after a deadly cyclone overshadow the struggle for political change in the military-run nation, an EU envoy said Tuesday.

Myanmar's junta has ruled since 1962 and keeps opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked away, but the world's gaze has recently been on efforts to get aid to some 2.4 million survivors of the storm that hit in early May.

"We must not forget the political problems," Piero Fassino, the European Union special envoy for Myanmar, told reporters in Bangkok.

"The only way for this problem to not disappear from the radar is to commit not only on the humanitarian side but also on the political side to a long-lasting solution," he said.

The cyclone left more than 133,000 people dead or missing. The junta outraged the international community by blocking the delivery of foreign assistance and refusing visas for aid workers.

The regime relented after a personal visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and aid is slowly making its way to Myanmar's needy.

"The priority now is to make sure that the promises (junta head) Than Shwe made to the secretary general are actually fulfilled," Fassino said at the end of a tour of Southeast Asia to discuss Myanmar.

The junta has agreed to let regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), lead the relief effort. Fassino said the organisation should exert its influence over the junta.

"I believe that the ASEAN countries can actually assert a very important influence on the Burmese (Myanmar) junta and this is why the European Union is ready to support the ASEAN countries," he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy party to a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed them to take office.

They have kept her under house arrest for most of the last 18 years, resisting pressure from the international community to free her and move towards democracy.

A crackdown on anti-government protests last year that left at least 31 people dead briefly invigorated the diplomatic push for change in Myanmar, but produced few results.

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