Bangladesh: Maritime verdict to be made public today

Dhaka, July 8 (New Age): The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague delivered its verdict on Bangladesh-India maritime boundary dispute on Monday and sent the verdict to the respective governments but results of the verdict will be disclosed on Tuesday. According to the arbitration court’s moratorium, the verdict cannot be disclosed for 24 hours that will end on Tuesday. ‘We’ve received the verdict; we’re examining it,’ Salauddin Noman Chowdhury, DG, external affairs of the foreign ministry, told New Age. The foreign ministry will make ‘comments’ and release salient features of the verdict to the press on Tuesday as it is a long verdict. The verdict was scheduled to be delivered on July 2. But at the last moment, the court changed its decision and fixed a new date. Bangladesh is expecting to win the case against India as it did against Myanmar. The country won a landmark verdict against Myanmar on March 14, 2012 at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas and through the verdict the country sustained its claim to the 200 nautical-miles and exclusive economic and territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal. The hearing of the case against India in the tribunal in The Hague filed by Bangladesh was concluded on December 18 last year. Dhaka and New Delhi have been locked in the maritime boundary disputes over 10 gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal as both the countries have been claiming the area to be their own. On October 8, 2009, Dhaka moved for arbitral proceeding concerning the maritime boundary dispute with India and served an arbitration notice upon New Delhi Later in May 2010, former foreign minister Dipu Moni filed a case with the UNCLOS seeking its arbitration on maritime dispute with India.