Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day that the Cari­com re­gion must re­main a zone of peace, even as he ac­knowl­edged the pos­si­bil­i­ty that T&T's ne­go­ti­a­tions to ac­cess Venezuela's nat­ur­al gas in the Drag­on field could be jeop­ar­dised by that coun­try's ter­ri­to­r­i­al claim on the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion in Guyana.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion on the Drag­on field is­sue at a news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Row­ley said: "Yes, there are al­ways risks. It is like a nu­clear re­ac­tion, once it gets start­ed you could lose con­trol of it.

"The last thing we want is for us not to be in a pe­ri­od of peace and in a zone of peace."

The T&T prime min­is­ter said he does not have a crys­tal ball to pre­dict the out­come of mat­ters, es­pe­cial­ly diplo­mat­ic is­sue.

"I have no fore­cast as to how it would go. But I would not like to see the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Venezuela and Guyana de­te­ri­o­rate to a point where con­se­quent ac­tions would neg­a­tive­ly dam­age all of us, be­cause all of us would be dam­aged.

"The Drag­on gas that we are af­ter, Venezuela has an in­ter­est there....We trust that all gov­ern­ments see it as ben­e­fi­cial to all of us and we cre­ate that econ­o­my based on the God-giv­en re­sources that we all have. To do that, we need peace, se­cu­ri­ty, re­spect and good wish­es for each oth­er."

T&T is in ad­vanced talks with the Venezue­lan ad­min­is­tra­tion head­ed by Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to get a li­cence for the ex­ploita­tion of the Drag­on nat­ur­al field, which is lo­cat­ed to the north east of the Ch­aguara­mas penin­su­la.

Venezue­lans are due to vote in a De­cem­ber 3 ref­er­en­dum on the coun­try's claim on the Es­se­qui­bo, a 160,000 square kilo­me­tre ter­ri­to­ry that was award­ed to Britain by an 1899 rul­ing by a Paris Ar­bi­tra­tion Tri­bunal. Britain ruled Guyana un­til the coun­try gained its in­de­pen­dence in May 1966.

In Feb­ru­ary 1966, the Gene­va Agree­ment, which was signed by the Britain, Venezuela and British Guiana, stip­u­lat­ed that the par­ties would agree to find a prac­ti­cal, peace­ful and sat­is­fac­to­ry so­lu­tion to the dis­pute, ac­cord­ing to a Wikipedia en­try.

The Gene­va Agree­ment al­so stip­u­lat­ed that in the event of a stale­mate, the de­ci­sion as to the means of set­tle­ment is to be re­ferred to an "ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan" or, fail­ing agree­ment on that point, to the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Na­tions. The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al re­ferred the mat­ter to the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice. On De­cem­ber 18, 2020, the ICJ ac­cept­ed the case sub­mit­ted by Guyana to set­tle the dis­pute.

On Oc­to­ber 20, 2023, Venezuela’s Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil (CNE) an­nounced the date and the ques­tions com­pris­ing the non-bind­ing ref­er­en­dum, ac­cord­ing to the web­site venezue­l­analy­sis.com.

In the ref­er­en­dum, Venezue­lans will be asked:

* Do you re­ject the 1899 ar­bi­tra­tion;

* Do you ap­prove of the 1966 agree­ment as the on­ly bind­ing mech­a­nism to re­solve the is­sue;

* Do you agree with not rec­og­niz­ing the ICJ’s ju­ris­dic­tion;

* Do you op­pose Guyana’s uni­lat­er­al ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the Es­se­qui­bo’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters;

* Do you agree with es­tab­lish­ing a new state, called Guayana Es­e­qui­ba, in the dis­put­ed strip, while grant­i­ng Venezue­lan cit­i­zen­ship to its in­hab­i­tants and im­ple­ment­ing “ac­cel­er­at­ed” so­cial pro­grammes.

Ear­li­er in the news con­fer­ence, the Prime Min­is­ter said the cur­rent re­la­tion­ship in Cari­com is the best it has ever been. He al­so told jour­nal­ists at the event that T&T's ac­cess to Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas is "a lifeblood is­sue" for this coun­try.

Asked how does the De­cem­ber 3 ref­er­en­dum, and what may come af­ter it, im­pact on T&T in Cari­com and this coun­try's Drag­on ne­go­ti­a­tions, Row­ley said: "If there is any coun­try that un­der­stands the prin­ci­pled po­si­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, it is Venezuela. Be­cause it was a Venezue­lan is­sue where Venezue­lan lifeblood was at stake that Trinidad and To­ba­go took its most pub­lic and prin­ci­pled po­si­tion."

He then re­ferred to the 1970 Port-of-Spain Pro­to­col, in which T&T's first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, con­tributed to ne­go­ti­at­ing a 12-year mora­to­ri­um on Venezuela's recla­ma­tion of the Es­se­qui­bo.

"We are con­fi­dent that the gov­ern­ments of Venezuela and Guyana would know that Cari­com's po­si­tion must be, and re­main, a zone of peace is the best po­si­tion for all of us.

"And sec­ond­ly, we all know that even in the dark­est hour, Trinidad and To­ba­go's po­si­tion was that if dif­fi­cul­ties arise, the re­sponse ought to be di­a­logue, di­a­logue and di­a­logue."