India ready to resolve maritime row with Bangladesh bilaterally
India on Saturday agreed to discuss all issues, including maritime disputes, with Bangladesh bilaterally, amid efforts by the two neighbours to take their relationship to a new level.
Pankaj Saran, the new Indian envoy in Dhaka, on Saturday met Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and underlined India's commitment to work with Bangladesh bilaterally on all issues that affects their ties.
"India would love to continue to discuss those issues bilaterally...even today we had healthy and productive dialogue with the foreign minister," Saran said told reporters after the meeeting.
Earlier this week, Bangladesh's foreign ministry claimed victory in its vexed maritime dispute with Myanmar at a UN tribunal, giving it crucial rights on outer Continental Shelf in the Bay of Bengal.
"We have achieved more than what we expected," Moni said on March 14, reacting to the verdict given by the International Tribunal for Laws of the Sea (ITLOS) at Humburg in Germany.
A separate case has also been filed by Bangladesh against India with another European court in the Netherlands and the verdict is likely to come up in 2014. Responding to questions on the UN Tribunal's verdict as Bangladesh has identical disputes with India, the Indian envoy said: "All issues were on the table of discussion".
"I conveyed to the honourable foreign minister that it (verdict against Myanmar) was an important decision. And we look forward to working with Bangladesh bilaterally on the issues that affects Dhaka and New Delhi," Saran said.
Bangladesh in 2010 decided to go for international arbitration in line with the provisions of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the ongoing discussions with India and Myanmar could not yield the expected results. Dhaka earlier said it has kept the option open for solving the dispute bilaterally even though it sought the resolution in the international tribunal as negotiations over the past several decades had failed to yield results.
The German-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) verdict on the dispute with Myanmar largely came in Bangladesh's favour on the basis of 'equitable' solutions.
Bangladesh has been pursuing the same 'equitable' solution formula with India, which has been advocating equidistance formula that limits Bangladesh maritime area in the Bay of Bengal.
The bilateral political and economic relations between India and Bangladesh has seen unprecedented improvement since the Awami League-led government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was formed in 2009.
The two governments have underlined their determination to take their ties to unprecedented level in the coming years.
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