GEORGETOWN: Calls mounted Thursday for calm to prevail as Venezuela said it witnessed a “provocation” in joint US-Guyana military drills and pledged to pursue the “recovery” of an oil-rich region both neighbors claim as their own.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) called an urgent meeting for Friday on the fast-escalating tension that Guyana said threatens global peace and security.
The US, through National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, urged the sides to find a diplomatic solution to the territorial dispute, saying we don’t want to see this come to blows.
But US provoked an angry response from Caracas by announcing via the embassy in Georgetown it would hold joint flight operations within Guyana as part of routine operations and engagement to enhance security partnership with its ally.
Venezuela criticisez US
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on X, formerly Twitter said that this unfortunate provocation by the US in favor of ExxonMobil in Guyana is another step in the wrong direction.
He added that Venezuela will not be diverted from its future actions for the recovery of the Essequibo, where the US oil giant has discovered crude.
The Essequibo region has been administered by Guyana for more than a century and is the subject of border litigation before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
It comprises some two-thirds of Guyanese territory and is home to 125,000 of the nation’s 800,000 citizens, but is also claimed by Venezuela, which does not recognize the ICJ’s jurisdiction and is trying to bring the area under its rule.
In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva voiced growing concern about the intensifying row on his country’s northern border.
Lula told a summit of the Mercosur South American bloc that if there is one thing we don’t want here in South America, it’s war.
The regional group, comprised of Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay, later issued a statement urging Caracas and Georgetown to seek a peaceful solution and warning against unilateral actions. It was also inked by Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and Peru.
