While the ten­sions be­tween Guyana and Venezuela ap­peared to have eased fol­low­ing a meet­ing be­tween the two lead­ers last week, Venezue­lan na­tion­al news­pa­per, El Na­cional, is re­port­ing that its Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has called on For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed King­dom, David Cameron, to re­main silent and not “talk non­sense” on the is­sue with Guyana over the Es­se­qui­bo. The re­gion of about 160,000 square kilo­me­tres has been part of Guyana but has al­so been claimed by Venezuela.

In a trans­lat­ed quote, El Na­cional re­port­ed Maduro as say­ing, “The chan­cel­lor of the Unit­ed King­dom, David Cameron, had to be slapped be­cause he start­ed talk­ing non­sense. If you failed, David Cameron, you failed, what do you do as chan­cel­lor if you fail? Stay qui­et.

“We had to give him his slap.”

He re­port­ed­ly made the state­ments in a meet­ing with the mil­i­tary high com­mand, broad­cast on the state chan­nel VTV.

Maduro point­ed out that the con­tro­ver­sy with Guyana “will be dis­cussed, to find so­lu­tions”, with the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (Celac) and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), which—he stat­ed—was agreed on Thurs­day in the meet­ing with his Guyanese coun­ter­part, Ir­faan Ali, in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, where they pledged not to threat­en or use force un­der any cir­cum­stances.”

“So let no ex­tra-re­gion­al ac­tor come to get their hands on this,” Maduro added.

In a state­ment on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) Cameron said that the Min­is­ter for Amer­i­c­as and the Caribbean, David Rut­ley, will vis­it Guyana in the com­ing days as part of the ef­forts by Lon­don to en­sure that Guyana main­tains its sov­er­eign­ty over the dis­put­ed min­er­al-rich Es­se­qui­bo re­gion that is al­so be­ing claimed by Venezuela.

Cameron said, “Sov­er­eign bor­ders must be re­spect­ed,” and “the UK will con­tin­ue to work with our part­ners in the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to en­sure re­spect for Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty.”

Mean­while, Cana­da threw its sup­port be­hind Guyana in the land dis­pute.

Cana­da said 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 to­wards main­tain­ing peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion and com­mend­ed all ef­forts to keep chan­nels of di­a­logue open in this re­gard.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley post­ed Cana­da’s state­ment on his Face­book ac­count on Sat­ur­day evening.