“We have recently received reports that Venezuela has been making extraordinary military deployments in eastern Venezuela, that is western Guyana, which seem to be impacting on Guyana’s territorial defence”, he added.
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – Guyana President David Granger said Tuesday that Venezuela has deployed troops to a contested border region in what he called a “dangerous” escalation of a long-running dispute between the South American nations.
VenezuelanPresidentNicolas Maduro arrived in the CaribbeanIsland of Dominica on Wednesday as part of an official visit to strengthen ties with the Caribbean country.
The foreign minister said this incursion was in addition to the increasing number of troops and equipment, “including missile launchers, on the other side of its borders, or our borders”.
“I have been in my earlier profession familiar with Venezuelan behaviour and what we have noticed during the month of September is an extraordinary escalation of Venezuelan military activity in eastern Venezuela”, he said.
Venezuela has long claimed a jungle area known as the Essequibo that comprises about 40 percent of Guyana’s territory.
Maduro issued a Decree on May 26 that includes all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast.
Granger will address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on September 29 and his foreign minister will be meeting with the Group of 77, the Non Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at the sidelines of the UNGA.
The latest round of recriminations followed Exxon Mobil’s announcement May 20 it had made a significant oil discovery in an offshore concession granted by Georgetown.
In February 1966, the governments of Venezuela, Great Britain, and Guyana (then British Guiana), signed an agreement in Geneva, Switzerland, by which a bilateral commission was appointed to seek “satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy”.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos agreed Monday to restore diplomatic contacts and work out their differences.
