Bangladeshi foreign minister to meet Burmese counterpart

by Siddique Islam
Monday, 12 October 2009 14:04

Dhaka (Mizzima) - Bangladesh will hold talks with Burma on the long-standing maritime boundary dispute of its territorial waters in Colombo on Thursday, which has threatened its rights to explore gas in the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni will discuss the issue with her Burmese counterpart on the sidelines of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue in Sri Lankan capital Colombo on the day.

“We're hopeful about the meeting with the Myanmar [Burma] Foreign Minister. We are going to discuss the maritime boundary issue in detail,” Moni told a press briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka on Sunday.

India has already responded positively to Dhaka's call to settle the long-standing row over sea territory through negotiations, she added.

Both India and Burma have claimed that Dhaka's territorial waters overlapped theirs and they have protested Bangladesh's move to explore gas from the disputed offshore hydrocarbon blocks.

In late September, the Bangladesh government agreed to an Energy Ministry decision to lease out blocks Nos. 5, 10 and 11 to the third largest US energy ConocoPhilips and Tullow of Ireland in the Bay of Bengal for oil and gas exploration.

The Foreign Minister also rejected reports that Burma has shored up security along the Bangladeshi border following Dhaka's declaration that it's taking both New Delhi and Naypyitaw to a UN tribunal to resolve the contentious maritime boundary issue.

On Thursday last, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Mijarul Kayes handed over copies of Dhaka's notification to the UN and its claims of territorial waters to Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty and Burmese Ambassador U Phae Than Oo.

"I had talks with the Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar and our foreign secretary also discussed it with Myanmar’s ambassador in Dhaka. We came to know that it’s a routine movement of Myanmar forces," Moni noted.

She said they had "no specific information" about the reported move by the Burmese border guards to forcefully push some 10,000 Rohingya ethnic Muslim people to Bangladesh.

The minister said Burma is erecting barbed-wire fences within its border, in line with the international law, and “we’ve nothing to say about it”.

The Burmese military junta in 1989 changed the country’s name to Myanmar, but opposition groups refused to recognise the name saying the junta’s rule is illegitimate.