New York - Indonesia has submitted a document to the United Nations containing information on the extended continental shelf north-west of Sumatra to assert its sovereignty over the natural wealth existing in the area.
"By giving the information, we have acted in accordance with Article 76, paragraph 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982," Indonesia`s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Marty Natalegawa, told ANTARA here Thursday.
The document was handed by Marty Natalegawa to the director of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS), Vaclav Mikulka, in New York, early this week.
It had taken about nine years for Indonesia to prepare the document containing information on the extended continental shelf for which it had to collect existing bathymetric as well as global seismic or sediment thickness data.
The information submitted was also on the outer limits of the extended Continental Shelf in the area north-west of Sumatra.
In accordance with paragraph 3 Annex I of the Rules of Procedures, submission of information on the outer limits of the extended continental shelf of Indonesia in other areas will be done at a later stage.
At the moment Indonesia was also considering the existence of an extended continental shelf in two other areas, namely those lying south of Nusa Tenggara and north of Papua.
While Indonesia is waiting for confirmation of its sovereignty rights over the continental shelf north-west of Sumatra, DOALOS would notify UNCLOS covenant countries by among other things announcing Indonesia`s claim on its website for approximately three months --during which it would become known whether other countries had a claim to the same area.
DUALOS would later ask its sub-commission to invite the Indonesian government to its meetings in which they would examine whether or not Indonesia`s claim to sovereignty rights over the extended continental shelf north-west of Sumatra was valid.
Source: http://www.antara.co.id (June 20, 2008)
