Singapore  - US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates assured high-ranking security officials on Saturday that the US has an enduring role in Asia which will continue regardless of who occupies the White House next year.

"Any speculation in the region about the United States losing interest in Asia strikes me as either preposterous, or disingenuous, or both," Gates told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual forum bringing together defence ministers and senior officials from 27 countries.

Despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a US economic slowdown, Gates said, "The US has the capacity to be engaged" with different parts of the world. We won't lose interest in Asia."

"The next US administration seems certain to continue the overlapping, long-standing, security partnerships" in the region, Gates said.

"It will also inherit an agenda of especially worrying issues," he noted, forecasting no change in the US drive to temper North Korea's nuclear ambitious.

In contrast to North Korea which "under pressure" came to the bargaining table for the six-party talks, Gates said Myanmar has shown no interest in engaging the US.

"We continue to get help into Burma (Myanmar) and remain poised to provide more" for the victims of the May 3 cyclone that left 133,000 dead or missing.

He welcomed the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) leadership and looked "forward to the quick emergence of a mechanism that can help international assistance reach those who need it."

The United Nations says less than half of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone have received any form of help.

Referring to the US as a "resident power" in Asia, Gates said there is sovereign American territory in the western Pacific from the Aleutian Islands to Guam.

"We will work to ensure that the United States continues to be welcomed in coming years in this part of the world," he said.

The next administration is bound to be guided by a single imperative, "to make each of our links more relevant, more resilient, more responsive and more enduring," Gates said.

The three-day meeting is organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. (dpa)