SINGAPORE--Myanmar must face more pressure over its handling of cyclone relief -- and its rights record -- when foreign ministers from neighboring nations, Washington and Europe meet this week, activists say.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has often been criticized for failing to act firmly against its rogue member Myanmar over human rights abuses and a lack of democratic progress in that country.

But the response of the bloc after Myanmar's delay in allowing foreign experts to help the relief effort after the Cyclone Nargis disaster in May has earned it some praise.

Activists said the group must keep pushing to secure more assistance for up to two million people who, ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said recently, remain in a "very precarious situation."

"For the first time in its history, ASEAN was actually effective at something," said Dave Mathieson, a consultant on Burma for the US-based Human Rights Watch.

"But there's still a lot of work to be done," he said. "So they've got to keep the pressure on."

Myanmar's military regime earned widespread condemnation by refusing to allow a major relief operation after the cyclone, which left 138,000 people dead or missing. Singapore, the ASEAN chair, called the delay "regrettable."

The junta later agreed to allow in foreign aid workers, and asked its fellow ASEAN nations to coordinate the international effort.

Under a tripartite agreement with the United Nations and the Myanmar government, nearly 300 ASEAN volunteers operated in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta to prepare an assessment of those affected by the storm.

That report, to be released Monday, "will be useful to help guide the relief and recovery efforts" to meet the medium-term needs of victims, Surin said.

ASEAN ministers, who begin a series of meetings Sunday night, will be joined on Thursday by counterparts from other nations gathered in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia's main security dialogue.

The grouping includes the United States and European Union -- whose sanctions and harsh words against Myanmar's junta have been at odds with the traditionally softer approach of ASEAN.

Debbie Stothard, of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, a rights group, said that how Myanmar's junta "seriously mishandled" the cyclone will be "the elephant in the room as far as the ASEAN Regional Forum is concerned."

Aid agencies in Myanmar still face restrictions on their relief work, and Mathieson said ASEAN must press the junta to let aid workers operate unhindered, and for assessments of health, shelter and other needs to continue.

Critics say the junta's poor response to the cyclone was due to its lack of a democratic framework and respect for human rights.

Just seven days after the cyclone, Myanmar insisted on holding a referendum on a military-backed constitution. Despite the devastation, it claimed 98 percent of voters turned out, with more than 92 percent endorsing the charter.

The opposition party of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, held under house arrest for most of the past 18 years, dismissed the referendum outcome as a "sham."

Senior Southeast Asian officials have recommended that their foreign ministers call on Myanmar to release all political detainees and for the junta "to take bolder steps" towards democracy, a senior official said.

If endorsed, the recommendation would signal a toughening of the bloc's attitude, but foreign ministers will debate the officials' recommendation and it could be watered down.

Myo Myint Maung, a Myanmar national who last year joined protests in Singapore against Myanmar and ASEAN, said activists will virtually ignore this week's meetings, having almost given up hope that ASEAN will bring about change.

"They have always refused to exert much pressure on the military regime," Myo Myint Maung said.