Sir Creek issue unlikely to be resolved in July talks: Indian Navy chief

Indian Navy Chief, Admiral Nirmal Verma, said on Tuesday that there is not much likelihood of the Sir Creek maritime dispute being resolved in 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 governments," he told reporters here, Press tTust of India (PTI) reported.
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 decades old maritime boundary issue involves three segments--the horizontal sector, maritime zone, and Sir Creek itself.
Rao had said that, before last round of talks on Sir Creek in Rawalpindi in 2007, the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had told 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.