The Guyana De­fence Force (GDF) and the Min­istry of De­fence of the Unit­ed King­dom have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) to en­hance bi­lat­er­al de­fence co­op­er­a­tion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step in strength­en­ing mil­i­tary ties be­tween the two na­tions.

The sign­ing fol­lowed a high-lev­el en­gage­ment led by Pres­i­dent Dr. Ir­faan Ali, who re­ceived the UK’s Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of De­fence, Lord Ver­non Coak­er, dur­ing a cour­tesy vis­it at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent on Fri­day.

Ali em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the UK-Guyana part­ner­ship, high­light­ing shared val­ues such as democ­ra­cy, the Rule of Law, and mu­tu­al re­spect. He wel­comed the agree­ment as a time­ly and strate­gic de­vel­op­ment in the con­text of re­gion­al and glob­al se­cu­ri­ty dy­nam­ics.

In brief re­marks, Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Omar Khan, MSS, not­ed that the MoU out­lines sev­er­al ar­eas for en­hanced col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­clud­ing train­ing, in­for­ma­tion shar­ing, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man­i­tar­i­an ex­er­cis­es, and de­fence ac­qui­si­tion.

He added that with decades of en­dur­ing re­la­tions be­tween Guyana and the Unit­ed King­dom, this agree­ment fur­ther con­sol­i­dates an al­ready strong and val­ued de­fence part­ner­ship.

Lord Coak­er was ac­com­pa­nied by UK High Com­mis­sion­er to Guyana, Jane Miller. 

The meet­ing al­so in­clud­ed key gov­ern­ment and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials.

The MoU rep­re­sents a re­newed com­mit­ment to co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the GDF and the UK’s Min­istry of De­fence, lay­ing the foun­da­tion for greater en­gage­ment, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, and joint ef­forts in ad­dress­ing emerg­ing de­fence and se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Apr. 12, CMC –  

CMC/gy/kb/2025