An­drea Perez-Sobers and Carisa Lee

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne says he has no is­sue with the new Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers.

How­ev­er, he says he has an is­sue with what was said about his coun­try dur­ing the on­go­ing search for miss­ing T&T na­tion­al Thomas Vasquez.

Sobers al­so says every­thing is good be­tween the two coun­tries.

Things got heat­ed over the week­end, af­ter Browne took aim at Sobers on Face­book, be­liev­ing it was he (Sobers) who said that dozens of tourists had dis­ap­peared in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

“You have no moral au­thor­i­ty to con­demn our beau­ti­ful coun­try. In­stead, you should fo­cus on the ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in crime in your home coun­try,” Browne wrote.

“Where­as we hope that the miss­ing Trinida­di­an young man is safe, there is no ev­i­dence that he went miss­ing in An­tigua.”

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Vasquez, 21, has been work­ing in a mar­i­jua­na field in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da for the last eight months. He re­turned home on April 6, left T&T on the 14, and was last seen in An­tigua on the 15. Those pre­vi­ous­ly seen with him have al­ready been ques­tioned as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

How­ev­er, a News­day ed­i­to­r­i­al on the is­sue claimed dozens of tourists had dis­ap­peared on the is­lands. The ed­i­to­r­i­al men­tioned that Sobers had in­struct­ed civ­il ser­vants to seek vi­tal up­dates from their coun­ter­parts in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da on the mat­ter.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Browne high­light­ed that the ini­tial tiff may have oc­curred be­cause mis­chief was be­ing ped­dled by An­tigua’s op­po­si­tion.

“The way the min­is­ter (Sobers) was be­ing fea­tured, not on­ly by News­day, but even by those who op­pose us here. There’s one per­son here who claimed that they re­cruit­ed him, or they sought his in­ter­ven­tion. So, they pulled him in­to the po­lit­i­cal fray. He has since clar­i­fied it. And I have noth­ing fur­ther to say on the mat­ter.

“But all I’m say­ing here is that, you know, what they’re say­ing about our coun­try is gross­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed. All coun­tries have miss­ing per­sons. I have an un­cle, for ex­am­ple, who lived in the Vir­gin Is­lands. He’s been miss­ing now for sev­er­al years, pre­sumed dead,” Browne said.

The prime min­is­ter added that drag­ging his coun­try with claims of sev­er­al miss­ing per­sons on the is­land was in­ac­cu­rate.

In re­sponse to the is­sue, Sobers al­so took to Face­book yes­ter­day to say every­thing was go­ing well be­tween the two coun­tries.

“I have not spo­ken to the Prime Min­is­ter, but I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with An­tigua’s For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter, and all is well be­tween this coun­try and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, as has al­ways been and we con­tin­ue to have strong bi­lat­er­al ties,” Sobers added.