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Pakistani and Indian defence officials Friday concluded their first round of talks to chalk out a mechanism for conducting a joint survey on a disputed water strip to demarcate the maritime zone, officials said.

The two sides opened the two-day talks in Pakistani city Rawalpindi earlier on Friday.

The talks on Sir Creek were held in "cordial and friendly" atmosphere, a statement issued by Pakistani Defence Ministry said after the meeting.

The Sir Creek is a 96-km-long strip of water disputed between Pakistan and India and opens up into the Arabian Sea, divides the Kutch region of the Indian state of Gujarat with the Sindh province of Pakistan.

"Both sides deliberated upon the issue and understood each others point of view," the statement said.

"The meeting expressed satisfaction over the progress achieved during the course of discussion," it said.

Accordingly, both sides will hold further discussion on the subject on Saturday.

Currently the disputed site is patrolled by boats of the Indian Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers.

India says that the boundary should be in the middle of the 100km estuary while Pakistan insists that the border should lie on the southeast bank.

According to the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the deepest point in the marshy land is to be taken as the center point, for demarcating the boundary on both sides, which would also prevent the inadvertent crossing over of fishermen of both nations into each others' territories.

Both nations are in a hurry to sort out the matter, as maritime domain demarcation and sea boundary statistics need to be submitted to the United Nations by 2009.

In case of their failure, the United Nations would declare them as international waters.
 
The demarcation of boundary has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan for several decades. Various rounds of talks held so far have not helped resolve the differences.

The history of the issue dates back to 1914 when an agreement was signed between the then government of Sindh and Rao Maharaj ofKutch. According to the agreement, both sides agreed to a boundary line running through the middle of the creek as a border between the two states.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2006)