Dhaka: Bangladesh is planning to seek an UN settlement for its maritime demarcations with Burma and India in the Bay of Bengal, as the two neighbours have challenged Bangladesh's attempts at hydrocarbon exploration with overlapping charges.

"We are making preparations to put forward our objection to the UN by June to Myanmar's claim and by November to India's claim in the Bay of Bengal," an official involved in the process told the News Age newspaper on Monday.

The report came after Burma and India both recently opposed Bangladesh's offshore block bidding for exploration of oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh had earlier also objected to Burma's test drilling in the sea adjacent to its territory, escalating tensions between the two neighbours over the maritime demarcations in November 2008.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Bangladesh must demarcate its sea boundaries by July 27, 2011, India must demarcate by June 29, 2009 and Burma by May 21, 2009.

Officials said that Burma had submitted its claim for the maritime delimitation to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, an UN body established to deal with the law of the sea, in December 2008, while India was due to submit its own claim last Monday.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni will leave for Burma for a three-day meeting scheduled for May 15-17 with discussions on the maritime boundary issue at the top of the agenda.