Continental Shelf of Bay of Bengal

UK experts in Dhaka to help submit claim to UN

30 June 2010, 18:00 PM

Diplomatic Correspondent

A team of four British experts arrived in Dhaka yesterday to assist Bangladesh in submitting to the United Nations its claims over the continental shelf of the Bay of Bengal by July next year. The UN set the deadline for Bangladesh for submitting its claims to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) at the UN Headquarters in New York. The experts, hired by Bangladesh, called on Foreign Minister Dipu Moni at her office and discussed various aspects of the documents to be prepared for submission to the UN. The team members are Joshua A Brien and Paul Hibberd, legal advisers of Maritime Boundaries of Commonwealth Secretariat, and Lindsay Parson and Alan Evans of UNCLOS Group of National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton University, England. They also began a process of consultation with the officials of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Wing, headed by Additional Foreign Secretary Rear Admiral (Retd) Khurshid Alam, at the foreign ministry. The international legal experts are examining the seismic survey, done by Bangladesh on the Bay of Bengal, as well as other preparations. They are also providing technical and legal support to the officials preparing the documents, said a source. Bangladesh is now working on data processing. The foreign experts are expected to finish their task by December, the source said.