Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he has no is­sue with any­one in the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment.

His com­ment fol­lows crit­i­cism from the Bar­ba­dos For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry to his state­ment at a news con­fer­ence last week, af­ter 33 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als were al­lowed to re­turn home from Bar­ba­dos, where they were strand­ed af­ter T&T closed its bor­ders last month due to COVID-190 re­stric­tions.

In a state­ment last Fri­day, the Bar­ba­dos min­istry said it was “deeply dis­turbed” by Young’s com­ment that Cari­com na­tions should not al­low them­selves to be used as a “jump­ing point” for T&T na­tion­als and oth­ers to get in­to this coun­try. In par­tic­u­lar, Wal­cott not­ed Young’s state­ment gave the in­fer­ence that Bar­ba­dos was one of the of­fend­ing coun­tries.

Asked about the mat­ter yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Young said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made it clear on Sat­ur­day that the Gov­ern­ment has no is­sues with Bar­ba­dos.

“I cer­tain­ly have no is­sue with any­one in Bar­ba­dos, in par­tic­u­lar at the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment lev­el,” Young said at the dai­ly COVID-19 me­dia brief­ing when asked about the is­sue.

Young added that he had not spo­ken to Wal­cott on the is­sue re­lat­ed to the 33 Tri­ni na­tion­als last Wednes­day, the day af­ter the 33 Tri­nis re­turned from Bar­ba­dos. Rather, he said through­out the process he had dealt di­rect­ly with Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Dale Mar­shall.

He ex­plained that when he read out parts of a let­ter sent to a Cari­com coun­try last week he didn’t call any names.

On Sat­ur­day when asked about the is­sue, PM Row­ley said “there was no fall­out be­tween the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Bar­ba­dos ... the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Bar­ba­dos is as good as it has ever been.”