DHAKA, Dec 27: Bangladesh summoned India’s ambassador on Saturday to protest exploration work by Indian ships in gas-rich waters claimed by both the neighbours, officials said.

Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain summoned Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty to his office and handed over a written protest urging an immediate cessation of survey activities, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

The complaint came after naval personnel spotted an Indian survey ship and two support vessels late on Thursday in territory claimed by Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh says the area in question is part of its deep-sea gas block number 14, which analysts say is rich in hydrocarbon.

Crew members on the Bangladeshi vessel asked their Indian counterparts to exit the waters but were told they were in their own waters, a foreign ministry statement said.

In a separate written statement, Foreign Minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury urged New Delhi to “postpone the survey” until a settlement was reached on the territorial dispute.

“We are confident that peaceful deliberations and diplomatic measures will ultimately lead to a mutually acceptable solution in this regard,” the statement said.

Indian High Commissioner Chakravarty told reporters after the meeting that it was incorrect to call the water disputed but that there was “an overlapping claim” on it by both countries.

“I don’t know exactly what work they are doing there but these are survey ships. They will finish their work and then go,” he told reporters, adding that New Delhi was keen to sort out the dispute through diplomacy and had asked Bangladeshi officials to travel to India to discuss the matter.

“They are chartered ships, not Indian Navy ships. Bangladeshi Naval ships, however, are in the area.”

The Bangladeshi foreign secretary said: “We have taken the Indian proposal positively but hope India will remove the survey ships.”

A naval commander told AFP that two Bangladeshi ships had been sent to the region and a third was on its way as reinforcement.

Last month, a similar row between Bangladesh and its eastern neighbour Myanmar flared over another disputed stretch in the bay. Bangladesh deployed four ships and put its navy and armed forces on high alert after a South Korean company escorted by Myanmar ships began work in the area. A series of meetings between the two failed to resolve the dispute and it was only after Myanmar removed the ships that it simmered down.—AFP