Dhaka: A two-day meeting on the maritime dispute between Burma and Bangladesh started on Friday in the Bangladesh port city Chittagong.

The meeting began at Hotel Agrabad in the port city at 9:30 am.

A 13-member Burmese delegation led by Burmese Deputy Foreign Minister U Maung Myint is attending the meeting, while Additional Foreign Secretary Md Khurshid Alam is leading a Bangladesh delegation.

Md Khurshid Alam said, "The first day of the talks between Bangladesh and Myanmar started to dissolve disputes over the maritime boundary. We discussed the processes of delineating maritime boundary in the first day of talks and we will discuss the same issue on Saturday."

The first day's meeting was concluded around 2 pm, and will reconvene again on Saturday.

U Pe Than U, Burma's envoy in Bangladesh, and Anup Kumar Chakma, Bangladesh's ambassador in Rangoon, attended the meeting.

During the talks, Bangladesh emphasized the principle of equity process while Burma wanted acceptance of the principle of equal distance, Md Alam said.

This is the first such meeting since Bangladesh turned to the United Nations' arbitration court in October of last year to resolve the disputes with India and Burma over maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh also made it known at that time that options for bilateral discussions and settlement would remain open.

Foreign ministry officials say Bangladesh, India, and Burma cannot exploit the full benefits of their oil and gas reserve in the Bay due to the claims and counter-claims on the offshore blocks.

Out of Bangladesh's total of 27 claims, Burma and India have made overlapping claims on at least 18 offshore blocks in the complicated maritime geography.

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