The meet­ing be­tween the pres­i­dents of Guyana and Venezuela, sched­uled for to­day in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, is the re­sult of an agree­ment by the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Heads of Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing talks at a vir­tu­al meet­ing on Fri­day.

Fol­low­ing that meet­ing, Cari­com urged Venezuela to re­spect the con­ser­va­to­ry mea­sures de­ter­mined by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in its De­cem­ber 1 rul­ing. The re­gion­al group­ing al­so re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to the main­te­nance of the re­gion as a zone of peace and the ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law.

The Cari­com state­ment then called for "a de-es­ca­la­tion of the con­flict and for ap­pro­pri­ate di­a­logue be­tween the lead­ers of Venezuela and Guyana to en­sure peace­ful co­ex­is­tence, the ap­pli­ca­tion and re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and the avoid­ance of the use or threats of force."

The chal­lenge in Cari­com's po­si­tion, as they head in­to to­day's meet­ing, is in de­ter­min­ing what is the "ap­pro­pri­ate di­a­logue be­tween the lead­ers of Venezuela and Guyana" that will lead to "a de-es­ca­la­tion of the con­flict."

The "con­flict" be­tween Venezuela and Guyana re­lates di­rect­ly to the re­ju­ve­na­tion of the for­mer's long-stand­ing claim to the Es­se­qui­bo, the hold­ing of a con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum in which one of the ques­tions asked whether Venezue­lans agreed to the es­tab­lish­ment of a new state called Guayana Es­e­qui­ba and com­ments by Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro last week that his coun­try in­tends to grant li­cences to ex­ploit the re­gion's re­sources.

As re­cent­ly as Tues­day, in a four-page let­ter to St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­salves, Guyana's Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali re­it­er­at­ed that "the land bound­ary is not a mat­ter for bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions" with his Venezue­lan coun­ter­part at to­day's meet­ing.

To neu­tral and fair-mind­ed ob­servers, tak­ing a po­si­tion not to dis­cuss the mat­ter that is at the heart of the con­flict, is not like­ly to be viewed as "ap­pro­pri­ate di­a­logue" that will lead to "a de-es­ca­la­tion of the con­flict."

In the let­ter, Pres­i­dent Ali al­so not­ed that the 1966 Gene­va Agree­ment pro­vid­ed "sev­er­al mech­a­nisms for Guyana and Venezuela to re­solve Venezuela's con­tention of the nul­li­ty and in­va­lid­i­ty of the (1899) award by talks; fail­ing which the (1966) agree­ment man­dates the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al to se­lect a fi­nal means of set­tle­ment of the con­tro­ver­sy."

It is note­wor­thy that one of the five ques­tions in the re­cent ref­er­en­dum in Venezuela asked whether the cit­i­zens sup­port the Gene­va Agree­ment as "the on­ly valid le­gal in­stru­ment to reach a prac­ti­cal and sat­is­fac­to­ry so­lu­tion" for the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion. Over 98 per cent of those vot­ing ap­proved of the 1966 de­ci­sion.

The UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al chose the ICJ to pro­vide the fi­nal and con­clu­sive judg­ment on the Es­se­qui­bo mat­ter be­cause it was clear that 51 years of bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions had not and would not re­solve the is­sue.

It can be ar­gued, there­fore, that Venezuela's sup­port of the 1966 Gene­va Agree­ment is, in ef­fect, agree­ment that the ICJ should have the last word on the Es­se­qui­bo.

It would cer­tain­ly be a nov­el ap­proach for Pres­i­dent Ali to em­brace the 1966 Gene­va Agree­ment, which Venezuela has used as the cen­ter­piece of its at­tempt to dis­tance it­self from the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ).

The two lead­ers al­so need to de-es­ca­late their rhetoric and cool the tem­per­a­ture of their pub­lic ut­ter­ances, as the first step in en­sur­ing the peace­ful co­ex­is­tence called for by Cari­com's lat­est state­ment on this is­sue.