Dhaka, Bangladesh – Bangladesh is going to a United Nations tribunal to settle a dispute over sea territory with India and Myanmar, which has threatened Bangladesh’s rights to explore gas in the Bay of Bengal.

“We have decided to go for arbitration as the issue was not resolved through bilateral discussion with the two neighboring countries in the last 35 years,” Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Dipu Moni told a press briefing at the ministry in the capital, Dhaka on Thursday.

The minister said the government has decided to take the maritime boundary dispute to a compulsory arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, for a peaceful settlement.

Her comments came hours after Foreign Secretary Mijarul Kayes handed over copies of the notification Dhaka is making to the U.N. and a claim of its sea territory to Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty and Myanmar Ambassador U Phae Thoan Oo formally at the foreign ministry.

The foreign minister said the government would also keep the options for dialogue open, as both countries are “Bangladesh’s friends. We remain committed to the on-going negotiations with our neighbors.”

The move came as the government last week launched negotiations with two international oil companies (IOCs) — ConocoPhilips of the United States and Tullow of Ireland — to sign deals to explore oil and gas in three offshore blocks.

Both India and Myanmar, which have made large gas discoveries in their parts of the Bay, last week lodged protests over Dhaka’s move to grant exploration rights to the two companies, saying the three blocks overlapped their sea-territories.

The foreign ministry reacted forcefully against the protests. “The claims of our neighbors have unfairly cut off a significant portion of our maritime area in the Bay of Bengal. And it prevented us from exploring and exploiting oil and natural gas resources.”

The government said it took the maritime dispute to the UNCLOS “with a view to preserving our national wealth and sovereign rights in the Bay of Bengal.”

The foreign minister said the arbitration under the convention could end the dispute with the neighbors “amicably in about five years time.”

“Because all three countries are parties to this Convention, they are under an obligation to accept the Final Award of this Tribunal, which we anticipate will take approximately four to five years,” the ministry said.

“This will allow us to once and for all settle this dispute with our neighbors, to ensure that our natural resources in the sea are fully respected, and to move forward to an era of prosperity as we exploit our national wealth.”

Last month, the Bangladesh government okayed an energy ministry decision to lease out blocks Nos. 5, 10 and 11 to ConocoPhilips and Tullow Oil plc in the Bay of Bengal for oil and gas exploration.

The ConocoPhillips, the third largest energy company in the U.S., will get deep-sea blocks Nos. 10 and 11 while Irish company Tullow gets shallow-sea block No. 5, according to the energy ministry.