Pakistan says to release 70 Indian fishermen

KARACHI, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Pakistan is to release 70 Indian fishermen detained for illegally entering Pakistani territorial waters, a government official said today.

The fishermen will be released tomorrow as officials from the two countries begin talks on their disputed maritime boundary.

Most of the Indian fishermen were arrested over the past two years in the disputed Sir Creek, an estuary between India's western state of Gujarat and Pakistan's Sindh province.

''They will be handed over to Indian authorities tomorrow said Faqir Mohammad Jadam Mangrio, an adviser to the Sindh provincial government.

Mangrio said the fishermen would be handed over at the Wagah border crossing in eastern Pakistan.

Twenty of the fishermen to be released were boys in their teens, detained on boats with older men, he said. They had been kept at a separate children's detention facility in Karachi.

Indian authorities were due to relase 31 Pakistani fishermen, he said.

Authorities from the old rivals frequently arrest each other's fishermen for intruding into territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.

Yesteray's repatriation will be the fourth in recent years.

Pakistan has detained a total of 621 Indian fishermen since September 2005. India has detained at least 60 Pakistani fishermen during the same period, Mangrio said.

Fishermen complain they often don't know whose waters they are in because of the dispute over the maritime boundary.

Indian and Pakistani officials are due to begin two days of talks in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi tomorrow aimed at working out a mechanism for a joint survey of the Sir Creek.

The boundary talks are part of a tentative peace process the nuclear-armed neighbours launched in early 2004.

REUTERS SP VC1940