Bangladesh: Dhaka-Rangoon To Discuss Border Dispute After 21 Years

Bangladesh: Dhaka-Rangoon To Discuss Border Dispute After 21 Years
The Daily Start - My Sinchew
Original by ASHFAQ WARES KHAN - The Daily Star - ANN

DHAKA, BANGLADESH: A high-level delegation will visit Rangoon within a month to discuss Bangladesh's longstanding maritime boundary dispute with Burma and clarify areas for deepwater gas exploration.

This move comes as part of a push to kick-start bilateral talks, after political crises in the neighbouring country last year, with foreign secretary Touhid Hossain going to Rangoon next month to hold annual discussions.

Additional Foreign Secretary MAK Mahmood will lead a high-level delegation within a month to Rangoon to start technical discussions on demarcating the maritime boundary, an issue not discussed by the neighbours in 21 years.

The boundary dispute intensified over the past five years after both India and Burma rushed into exploration for gas allegedly within Bangladesh territory.

"We have, during the past year, developed an excellent bilateral relationship with Myanmar (Burma). It is our view this would be further strengthened when we resolve the issue of maritime boundaries," Iftekhar told reporters Thursday (17 Jan).

The decision to send the delegation was made in an inter-ministerial meeting yesterday chaired by Foreign Adviser Iftekhar A Chowdhury and attended by senior foreign ministry officials, home ministry officials and Navy personnel.

Rangoon has increasingly warmed to Dhaka over the past year and the neighbours made significant progress in a number of key areas such as road links, border management and energy cooperation.

Most of these issues were put on hold after monks took to the streets in Burma in September last year, plunging the military-ruled state into a political crisis.

Foreign ministry sources told The Daily Star that Bangladesh has been preparing its case for gas exploration but have not been able to invite tender for block bidding as the maritime boundaries had not been demarcated.

The sensitivity of the issue has kept the maritime boundary dispute off the bilateral agenda over the last few years, said one official, adding warmer relationships have made it possible to start talks to resolve the matter.

India, Burma and Bangladesh have not demarcated their territorial water. India and Burma have agreed on an "equidistant" boundary allowing them to explore gas in the Bay of Bengal.

One foreign ministry official said Bangladesh's delay in claiming its maritime territories has allowed both India and Burma to creep into Bangladeshi territory in the Bay of Bengal.

Mahmudur Rahman, energy adviser to the last BNP-led coalition government, claimed in 2006 that Burma had encroached 18,000sq km into Bangladeshi territory and floated gas exploration tenders.

India was alleged to have encroached into 19,000sq km into Bangladeshi waters.

The caretaker government is reported to have plans to explore deepwater fossil fuel in Bangladesh's claimed 200 nautical miles of territorial water in the Bay of Bengal.

According to the Law of the Sea, Bangladesh claims 12 nautical miles of territorial sea, 200 nautical miles of Exclusive Economic Zone and 350 nautical miles of Continental Shelf in the Bay of Bengal.

The country has been allowed 10 years time to justify its claim since it ratified the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea in 2001.

(By ASHFAQ WARES KHAN/ The Daily Star/ ANN)