BANGLADESH

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said Bangladesh's rights over 460 nautical-mile area in the Bay of Bengal will be secured from India and Myanmar.

"Both Myanmar and India will have to accept that we have rights in that part of the sea. We have our rights over the resources. Inshallah, we will secure the rights," she told parliament on Wednesday during the question-answer session.

Replying to a supplementary question of Naogaon-2 constituency MP Sahiduzzaman Sarkar, she said: "We have rights over the amount of sediment going to sea from Bangladesh and the area created by that sediment."

"We have rights over that 460 nautical-mile area of the Bay of Bengal. In the sea, Bangladesh has an area which is larger than its (Bangladesh) size," she added.

Bangladesh placed its 'position paper' on its maritime claim in the Bay of Bengal to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in New York on Feb 25. It claimed that Bangladesh owns that area.

But Myanmar on Mar 31 and India on Jun 20 last year placed their 'objection letters' to the UN over Bangladesh's claim.

The hearing on Bangladesh's claim began on Aug 24 last year at the UN.

Moreover, a case is also running at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) between Bangladesh and Myanmar to settle a dispute over degrading maritime border. The hearing of the case started last September.