Venezuela, Guyana to hold talks on territorial dispute
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who supported ongoing efforts to “establish a direct dialogue between the parties” to the conflict
Venezuela and Guyana will hold high-level talks on settling the territorial dispute between the two countries, Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said.
“Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held telephone talks with [his Brazilian counterpart] Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves. During the talks, he received an offer to hold a summit with the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, which will be announced in the coming days,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its X page (formerly Twitter).
“Both conversations reaffirmed the historical position of Venezuela’s inalienable, sovereign right to Guyana-Essequibo, as well as the legitimate and peaceful nature of our demands, which are based <…> on the 1966 Geneva Agreement and the principles and values of Bolivarian peace diplomacy,” the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said.
The statement also said that Maduro held a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who supported ongoing efforts to “establish a direct dialogue between the parties” to the conflict.
About 95% of participants in the December 3 consultative referendum voted in favor of creating the Guayana Esequiba state and making it part of Venezuela. The country’s National Assembly (parliament) on December 6 unanimously passed a bill on the protection of Guyana-Essequibo within Venezuela on first reading, based on the results of a consultative referendum. The bill provides for the creation of the 24th state of Guyana-Essequibo in the disputed territory. Maduro signed six decrees that create a legal framework to govern the annexed territory.
Territorial dispute
Venezuela and Guyana have been at odds over a 159,500-square-kilometer area west of the Essequibo River for more than a century. Tensions flared up after oil fields containing at least ten bln barrels of oil had been discovered in 2015 and Guyana provided the ExxonMobil company with a concession to explore oil in the offshore areas that had not been delimited. In April, the UN International Court of Justice found Guyana’s lawsuit against Venezuela on border demarcation based on the 1899 decision of a Paris arbitral tribunal to be admissible. The court ruling, which cited fake maps and huge pressure from the UK, handed 90% of the disputed area to London’s colony, British Guiana. Venezuela views Guayana Esequiba as its legitimate territory and believes that the dispute does not fall under the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and insists on direct border demarcation talks with Guyana, as provided for in the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
