Bangladesh has appealed to the United Nations (UN) to resolve its decade-long maritime dispute with India over the demarcation in the southern Bay of Bengal. The dispute arose following India’s overlapping claims and the countries have failed to sort the matter bilaterally.
A Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry source said the country’s Permanent Mission to the UN headquarters in New York filed two appeals to the UN Secretary-General on September 13, protesting the straight baselines in the Bay of Bengal claimed by India. The baseline is used to measure the breadth of the territorial sea and set the continental shelf’s outer limits.
According to Bangladesh’s claims at the UN, India’s base point 89 is located on the Bangladeshi side of the maritime boundary, 2.3 nautical miles inside its territorial waters. Moreover, Bangladesh has claimed a continental shelf, a 350-mile area in the sea from the coastline. Of this, a 200-mile area, called exclusive economic zone (EEZ), belongs to India. In April, India sent a letter to the UN opposing this baseline set by Bangladesh and its claim over the continental shelf.
“This dispute has been hanging for many years between the two neighbours, and they have failed to solve it through bilateral dialogues despite dozens of meetings. Now both nations have gone to the UN, and we hope that the world’s biggest platform will provide a sustainable solution,” Shahidul Haque, former foreign secretary of Bangladesh, told Anadolu Agency (AA).
“The Bay of Bengal is a unique resource for Bangladesh, and the supreme authority for its legal sea territory is related to the country’s sovereignty. As both India and Bangladesh are claiming that they are good friends and passing through a very cordial course, I expect that the two closest neighbours will accept any decision taken by the UN over the dispute,” Chowdhury Rafiqul Abrar, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University, told AA. Abrar also urged India to follow the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to resolve the dispute.
Khurshid Alam, Secretary of the Maritime Affairs Unit at the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, “The manner in which India has determined her baseline is contrary to Section 7 of the UNCLOS. That is why we have raised our objections.”
The Bay of Bengal is a strategic maritime resource in the South Asian region for Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar. The waterbody is significant for Bangladesh as it is the primary source of Hilsa and other fish, and millions of coastal people are dependent on fishing for their livelihoods.