DHAKA: The row between Bangladesh and Myanmar over lucrative hydrocarbon exploration in the Bay of Bengal continued unabated as a meeting called here to settle the issue ended in a stalemate.
"We have agreed for continued negotiations," Foreign Advisor in the Bangladesh interim cabinet Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said as Myanmar's visiting deputy Foreign Minister Maung Moyint made a courtesy call on him at the end of the high-level meeting.
Asked if Dhaka felt the necessity of a third party UN intervention to settle the dispute, Chowdhury rebuffed the proposition saying "bilateral negotiations will have to be exhausted first".
"We expect to solve the dispute over the areas overlapping claims through discussions in future. We want good relations with Myanmar and as neighbours we need each other," Chowdhury said.
Earlier, before the talks resumed, Dhaka asked Yangon to stop hydrocarbon exploration in the disputed waters of Bay of Bengal.
Additional foreign secretary MAK Mahmood, who is leading the Bangladesh side in the meeting, earlier said that Yangon should restrict its survey and exploratory activities to the east of 180 degree line claimed as Bangladesh's territorial waters, until a final agreement between the two countries on maritime delimitation is signed.
The two-day crucial talks on maritime disputes between the two neighbours began yesterday, a week after the end of a military standoff when the two countries had mobilized warships in the Bay of Bengal and deployed troops in their borders.
However, no tangible progress was made in the opening day's expert-level negotiations as the two sides remained rigid on their stance on the methodology to be used in delimitation.
The talks are fourth of their kind on maritime issue, which remained stalled for 22 years until the two countriesheld their first round of discussion on March 30 this year in Dhaka.
Bangladesh prefers the maritime boundaries to be drawn on the basis of "equity" while Myanmar argues for "equal-distance" method.
"We sincerely believe whatever method or rule is applied to maritime boundary delimitation, we have no scope to deviate from the principle of equity and justice," Mahmood had, earlier told newspersons referring to a verdict and proceedings
of international courts.
