The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty is main­tain­ing that Guyana has a right to peace­ful­ly de­vel­op the re­sources of its ter­ri­to­ry.

CARI­COM is­sued a state­ment in re­sponse to a Com­mu­nique from the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, re­gard­ing the an­nounce­ment made by Guyana about its in­ten­tion to open bids for cer­tain oil blocks in the wa­ters ad­ja­cent to Guyana’s coast.

In the re­lease, CARI­COM says it views the stat­ed in­ten­tion of Venezuela to “ap­ply all the nec­es­sary mea­sures” to pre­vent the op­er­a­tions li­censed by Guyana in its wa­ters, as a threat of the use of force con­trary to in­ter­na­tion­al law.

"It is al­so not in keep­ing with the long-stand­ing po­si­tion of the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries that our Re­gion must re­main a Zone of Peace," the re­lease said.

"CARI­COM has al­so tak­en note of the de­ci­sion of the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly to con­duct a pop­u­lar ref­er­en­dum on de­fend­ing Venezuela’s claim. CARI­COM ex­press­es the hope that Venezuela will en­gage ful­ly in the process be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice, which has de­ter­mined that it has the ju­ris­dic­tion in the case brought be­fore it,” CARI­COM said.

It added: “The Court’s [In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice] fi­nal de­ci­sion will en­sure a res­o­lu­tion that is peace­ful, eq­ui­table and in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al law."