Cana­da says it has been close­ly mon­i­tor­ing re­cent de­vel­op­ments fol­low­ing the con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum on the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion that took place in Venezuela on De­cem­ber 3, 2023, and has been deeply con­cerned by grow­ing ten­sions in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­pute be­tween Venezuela and Guyana.

In a state­ment on Fri­day Cana­da said it , “ Stands with the Guyanese peo­ple and gov­ern­ment in call­ing for the ap­pli­ca­tion of and re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and strong­ly sup­ports Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty

“Cana­da salutes the diplo­mat­ic ef­forts of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) and the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) mem­bers in host­ing a di­a­logue be­tween the pres­i­dents of Guyana and Venezuela in Ar­gyle, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, on Thurs­day, De­cem­ber 14, as well as the me­di­a­tion role played by Brazil and the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res.”

Cana­da has reaf­firmed its sup­port for Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty and seeks a peace­ful and diplo­mat­ic set­tle­ment of the dis­pute at the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

Cana­da said it recog­nised Thurs­day’s di­a­logue as a pro­duc­tive step to­ward main­tain­ing peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion and com­mend­ed all ef­forts to keep chan­nels of di­a­logue open in this re­gard.