The United States and European Union agree on a "co-ordinated, integrated, international response" to the reconstruction of Haiti, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said after talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
 
Clinton said that teams from the US and EU countries were working side-by-side and she thanked Ashton for the generosity shown towards the people of Haiti by the EU, its member states and citizens.
 
Speaking at a joint news conference after their January 21 2010 meeting, Ashton said that European aid commissioner Karel De Gucht was in Haiti "to look at what has happened in order to begin the next stage of our support, which is support for the short-, medium-, and long-term".
 
So far the EU has given the equivalent of $500 million in support, already pledged.
 
Twenty-one member states have sent support in the shape of medical teams or other ways in which they can provide support on the ground. And there is a great willingness in the European Union to work closely with the United States and, of course, under the auspices of the United Nations, to provide that support for the future, Ashton said.
 
"Much to do now, but much, much more to do for the future. And we are very keen to work collaboratively in a strategic approach to support that nation into economic growth and into a new world," Ashton said.
 
Clinton said that the US had granted temporary protected status to Haitians living in the US without documentation as of January 12, "but that our ordinary and regular immigration laws will apply going forward, which means that we are not going to be accepting into the United States Haitians who are attempting to make it to our shores. They will be interdicted. They will be repatriated".
 
The Voice of America reported that the US military had reopened the severely damaged seaport in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to help improve delivery of aid to victims of the January 12 earthquake.
 
 
The military has also opened three more airports to assist the flow of humanitarian relief. 

The commander of the US. Southern Command, Air Force General Douglas Fraser, said that the military was gradually increasing its capacity to deliver assistance to the millions of people affected by the earthquake.
 
From Port-au-Prince, CNN said that authorities were pushing to clear earthquake-relief bottlenecks in Port-au-Prince hope to restore two-way traffic at the city's south pier by January 22.
 
Bottlenecks at the capital's ports, airport and its roads have delayed food and medical aid to the estimated three million Haitians who have been affected by the quake.
 
Efforts to rebuild Haiti's main port were being stepped up in an effort to ensure emergency supplies get through, and US navy and army divers were to start repairing the port's pier on January 22.
 
Re-opening Haiti's seaport in Port-au-Prince is seen as vital to the international aid effort, the BBC said.
 
Fifty per cent of the port was destroyed by the earthquake, but engineers have decided some parts of one pier are strong enough to handle limited amounts of cargo. The port will be running at 10 per cent capacity.
 
The BBC said that this would not be the answer in getting aid through to the quake-devastated country. Just four vessels had docked by the night of January 21. Dock workers had offloaded 124 containers of humanitarian aid from ships from the US, the Netherlands and France.
 
In Sofia, Bulgarian news agency BTA said that acting under instructions of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and in accordance with an order by Defence Minister Nikolai Mladenov, a team from Bulgaria’s Military Medical Academy will take part in a humanitarian mission to Haiti.
 
The Government media office said that the team, consisting of three doctors and two nurses, will go to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The team was scheduled to depart from Sofia on January 22.