Trinidad and To­ba­go sup­ports Cari­com’s po­si­tion on the Guyana mat­ter with Venezuela, says Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley.

Row­ley stressed this at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at White­hall, Port-of-Spain. It was the first us­age of the build­ing’s me­dia con­fer­ence fa­cil­i­ties in more than ten years, it’s un­der­stood. The brief­ing had been held over the years at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre.

Row­ley spoke af­ter ten­sions wors­ened be­tween Venezuela and Guyana.

On Mon­day, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali al­leged that Venezuela was try­ing to an­nex part of the Es­se­qui­bo dis­trict. This was af­ter Venezuela’s Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil an­nounced plans for a De­cem­ber 3 ref­er­en­dum to dis­cuss five points re­lat­ed to that re­gion. Guyana said the ques­tions posed in Venezuela’s ref­er­en­dum vi­o­lat­ed the sanc­ti­ty of treaties and called on the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to in­ter­vene.

Fol­low­ing Cari­com’s state­ment on Venezuela and the ten­sions on Wednes­day, Row­ley weighed in where T&T is con­cerned, af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Leader came out in sup­port of Guyana. He said the one thing the Op­po­si­tion had done with re­spect to T&T for­eign pol­i­cy was un­der­mine it or make a fool of them­selves.

Row­ley said Guyana and Venezuela are both T&T’s neigh­bours, Guyana is part of Cari­com and there is a Cari­com po­si­tion on the is­sue of Venezuela and that is where T&T is.

He said T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy is based in the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the UN Char­ter, those same ones used for Venezuela’s right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion in elec­tion in the face of sanc­tions and in­va­sions. Those same prin­ci­ples are now used with Venezuela in its treat­ment with Guyana.

Row­ley added, “We be­lieve our re­gion is a zone of peace and we are all bet­ter off liv­ing in a zone of peace, re­spect­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law and re­spect­ing the right of neigh­bours—we’re bet­ter off stronger to­geth­er.”

On if the is­sue would threat­en T&T’s arrange­ment with Venezuela for the Drag­on Field gas deal, Row­ley said he didn’t see a close con­nec­tion. He said while it would be bet­ter if the ten­sions were not oc­cur­ring, he didn’t see it af­fect­ing the project at this stage.

“We’re not as con­nect­ed as close­ly as you might put it. T&T is pur­su­ing its in­ter­ests with its friend and neigh­bour. If that neigh­bour has a prob­lem with an­oth­er neigh­bour, it’s an­oth­er is­sue ... but we’re not un­even­ly yoked per­ma­nent­ly,” he added.

Row­ley said the is­sue with Guyana and Venezue­lan has been go­ing on a long time and he hoped some day soon it can come to some am­i­ca­ble end.

He not­ed Venezuela’s elec­tions are al­so ahead with all kinds of is­sues.

“So let us not over­play our re­sponse in han­dling it,” he said.

He al­so said the is­sue in the Mid­dle East was very wor­rysome and T&T’s po­si­tion on this re­mained un­changed.