New Delhi: Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma
Tuesday said there is not much likelihood of the Sir Creek
maritime dispute being resolved in the forthcoming bilateral
talks between India and Pakistan in July.
"Really speaking, I can`t say it is doable because it
is a question of both sides willing to follow a certain line
of action. As far as Sir Creek is concerned, there are issues
which have to be addressed by both the governments," he told
reporters here.
The Navy Chief was asked to react on India`s chief
hydrographer Vice Admiral B R Rao`s recent statement that the
issue could be resolved soon and was one of the "easily
doables".
The five decade-old maritime boundary issue involves
three segments- the horizontal sector, maritime zone and Sir
Creek itself.
Rao had said that, before the last round of talks on
Sir Creek in Rawalpindi in 2007, the then Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf had told the Indian delegation that the
maritime boundary segment of the dispute could be settled in
10 minutes.
The methodology of settling down the dispute remains a
bone of contention between the two nations.
While India has been insisting upon excluding the
maritime zone from the entire dispute, Pakistan had demanded a
composite dialogue involving the three sectors.
In 2007, the two countries had exchanged maps of the
area and a consensus was expected on some portions of the
Creek and the horizontal sector lying in Gujarat and
Rajasthan.
PTI
