ISLAMABAD, 23 December 2006 — Pakistani and Indian officials met in Rawalpindi yesterday to discuss a lingering territorial dispute over an estuary, which has hindered exploration of oil and gas and led to the arrests of fishermen from both sides, a Defense Ministry official said.
The two sides reviewed and discussed mechanism for setting up a team to survey the 120 kilometer-long estuary.
An Indian team led by Rear Adm. B.R. Rao arrived here on Thursday for talks on the issue. The Pakistani team is headed by Maj. Gen. Jamilur Rahman Afridi, surveyor general of Pakistan.
The talks on the Sir Creek — a strip of marshland that flows into the Arabian Sea between Pakistan’s southern Sindh province and India’s western Gujarat state — are part of a peace process and warming of relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors that began in 2004.
Pakistani and Indian officials last discussed the dispute in New Delhi in December 2005, and according to Pakistani officials, the two sides were now close to reaching an accord.
“Yes, the talks have begun” at the Defense Ministry in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, said a ministry official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The two sides will issue a joint statement today at the end of their two-day talks, the official said, without giving further details.
Sir Creek is one of eight contentious and unresolved issues between the two countries — including the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir — that Islamabad and New Delhi have been discussing as part of the peace dialogue.
Although the oil and gas rich Sir Creek is not considered a priority, the lack of a well-demarcated border remains a problem. Both Pakistan and India have accused each other of trespassing and have arrested fishermen who inadvertently crossed into the other’s territorial waters.
Sources at the Foreign Office told Arab News earlier that Pakistan and India had decided to conduct a joint survey of Sir Creek. The idea of conducting the joint survey and preparing a mutually-acceptable map of the estuary was discussed at the India-Pakistan talks held from Nov. 13 to 16.
Pakistan had earlier adopted a position that the entire Sir Creek, with its eastern bank defined by a “Green Line” and represented on a 1914 map belongs to it. However, India says the “Green Line” is an indicative line and felt the boundary should be defined by the mid channel of the creek as shown in a map dated 1925.
Meanwhile, in another development, India freed 54 Pakistani fishermen yesterday.
