Dhaka, Yangon start talks on maritime boundary
Dhaka, Nov 16: Bangladesh and Myanmar today kicked
off talks on maritime disputes here, a week after they
resolved a standoff over Yangon's bid to explore hydrocarbon
in the Bay of Bengal.
Foreign ministry officials said Dhaka and Yangon began
the two-day talks on maritime boundary delimitation here as a
high-powered Myanmar delegation arrived here to adopt a
mechanism to end the dispute.
The talks began today with additional foreign secretary
MAK Mahmud leading the Bangladesh side and Myanmar's deputy
foreign minister Maung Moyint heading the 11-member
delegation, a foreign ministry spokesman told without any
immediate elaboration.
But foreign ministry officials earlier said Bangladesh
would press for demarcating the maritime boundary between the
two nations on the basis of "equity" while Myanmar earlier
argued for an "equal-distance method" of delimitation.
The meeting is the fourth of its kind on maritime issue,
which remained stalled for 22 years until the two countries
held their first round of discussions on March 30 this year in
Dhaka.
Bangladesh's foreign ministry today said the "crisis in
the Bay of Bengal" ended with the withdrawal of the
Yangon-engaged South Korean exploration rig and their warships
but reports from frontiers said both the countries still kept
an intensified vigil in borders as the two sides began the
talks in Dhaka.
"Myanmar's trespass on Bangladesh waters (however) is not
on our agenda, we will focus on setting a method of principles
for delimitation in the meeting... If we reach a consensus
over the issue the tension will ease automatically," a senior
foreign ministry official had said yesterday.
Foreign Secretary Mohammad Touhid Hossain had gone to
Yangon for talks while Dhaka simultaneously explored its
diplomatic channels engaging South Korea and China, a close
ally of the junta-ruled Myanmar to end the standoff.
In view of the initiatives, Daewoo declined to continue
exploration removing its installation from the disputed
waters, a move which was followed by the withdrawal of Myanmar
navy vessels from the "vicinity".
Last month, Bangladesh also held a three-day talk with
India on the issue after a pause of 28 years.
The two countries only agreed on further discussions on
the issue as they could not reach a consensus on the mid-flow
of the cross-boundary Hariabhanga river, considered crucial
for demarcation of maritime border.
Bangladesh officials had, earlier, said that Dhaka needed
to reach an agreement on maritime boundary with its two
neighbours. As a signatory to the United Nations Conventions
of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it would have to take up the
claim with the UN body on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
beyond the exclusive economic zone by 2011.
The issue of "starting point" on how to mark from the
coastline the exclusive economic zone has overlapped claims of
Bangladesh, India and Myanmar because of the funnel-like shape
of the Bay of Bengal, said an official.
Bureau Report
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