US Navy sends warship to India’s exclusive economic zone without permission, to challenge New Delhi's ‘excessive maritime claims’ — RT

 

The US Navy has said it deliberately refrained from asking India’s consent for a ‘freedom of navigation’ patrol near its Lakshadweep archipelago this week because New Delhi’s demands to do so contravene international law.
An Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the USS John Paul Jones, “asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles (240 km) west of the Lakshadweep Islands, inside India's exclusive economic zone [EEZ], without requesting India's prior consent, consistent with international law,” the US 7th Fleet announced in a statement on Wednesday.

Its mission in the Arabian Sea “upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging India's excessive maritime claims,” the statement added.

The US Navy said it was well aware that New Delhi “requires prior consent for military exercises or maneuvers in its EEZ and continental shelf,” but insisted those claims have no legal basis.

India believes it has the right to demand such permission in line with the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) it joined in 1995. The US, however, never signed that convention, and currently challenges what it deems “excessive maritime claims” by more than a dozen countries....rt