Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley will attend tomorrow’s meeting in St Vincent and the Grenadines between the presidents of Guyana and Venezuela on matters related to the border dispute between the two countries.
The meeting was borne out of ongoing discussions and a decision taken at a virtual Caricom emergency meeting held last Friday.
Meanwhile, in confirming to St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves that he will be attending the meeting, Guyana President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali reminded that in their call for an engagement between Guyana and Venezuela, the Caricom Heads of Government further called for “a de-escalation of the conflict through an appropriate dialogue between the leaders of Venezuela and Guyana to ensure peaceful co-existence, the application and respect for international law and the avoidance of the use or threats of force.”
Dr Ali added, “It is this framework for the meeting to which I have consented and to which I remain committed.”
Dr Ali noted that it was incumbent upon him to respond to what he called certain inaccuracies in President Maduro’s letter to Dr Gonsalves of December 11, particularly his statement that the ‘high-level dialogue’ to which you have invited us, is “in order to directly address the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana.”
He explained that as established in the Caricom meeting and conveyed in the outcome statement, there is full support by Caricom for Guyana in pursuance of the resolution of its border controversy with Venezuela through the process of the International Court of Justice.
“I, too, have a mandate from the National Assembly of Guyana, which is unanimous in its resolve that the land boundary is not a matter for bilateral discussions and the settlement of the matter is properly in the International Court of Justice where it must remain until the court gives its final ruling on the merits of the case which, Guyana has always said, and I repeat, will be fully respected by Guyana,” he said.
Ali noted that Venezuela has never offered any credible support or evidence for its contention of nullity and invalidity of the 1899 Arbitral Award, which settled the boundary between the then British Guiana and Venezuela. He said it has also not offered evidence to contradict the validity of the 1905 Agreement, signed by both parties, fixing the boundary along the line established in the 1899 Arbitral Award.
“To the contrary, between 1899 and 1962 Venezuela accepted that boundary as the international boundary between the two states, as reflected in all official Venezuela maps published during this 6o+ year period. Indeed, it applauded the award, claiming as a great victory the attribution of the mouth of the Orinoco River—which was understood by both parties as the most important territory’ in dispute—to Venezuela,” he said.
Dr Ali pointed to the Geneva Agreement of 1966, which provides assurances of a final settlement by resting in the secretary-general of the United Nations, the authority to choose the International Court of Justice as the means of settling the controversy in accordance with international law.
“This is what he did in 2018. The parties are bound by the Geneva Agreement to accept the ICJ as the means of settlement, and to accept the judgement of the court as the final settlement of the controversy,” Ali said.
The Guyana President said he was obliged to point to other inaccurate assertions in President Maduro’s letter.
Ali said, “He refers to oil concessions ‘in a maritime area yet to be delimited’. I point out that, contrary to that misleading assertion, all of the oil blocks are located well within Guyanese waters under international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees coastal states the exclusive rights to the resources in the sea and seabed within 200 nautical miles of their coasts. The oil blocks are all located adjacent to Guyana’s coast and within 200 nautical miles of it,” he explained.
He said to underscore what he termed “the misleading nature of President Maduro’s statement,” it is important to note that in 2015, a significant oil discovery was made by Esso Exploration & Production Guyana Limited in the Stabroek Block approximately 120 miles offshore of Guyana.
He said production has since commenced and carried on without interference from Venezuela.
The four oil blocks included in the 2022 Licensing Bid Round are farther east of the boundary with Venezuela—and farther from the Venezuelan Coast—than the Stabroek Block.
Later in the day on his social media pages, Dr Ali indicated that he spoke with the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France, Catherine Colonna, about recent developments in the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana.
“She spoke of France’s position that Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected in line with the principles of the United Nations Charter. Minister Colonna also urged Venezuela to refrain from any unilateral action and reiterated France’s commitment to the principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes, including recourse to the International Court of Justice,” he said.
