2023-12-09 22:53:12
The presidents of Venezuela and Guyana, Nicolas Maduro and Irfaan Ali, will meet on Thursday for a summit over their border dispute. The meeting will take place in the island state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves yesterday. Caracas claims the oil-rich Essequibo region, which has been part of Guyana for more than a century, as its own.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will also take part in the meeting, said Gonsalves in his capacity as acting President of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Several South American countries had called on Venezuela and Guyana to resolve the dispute peacefully and warned against “unilateral actions”.
Large oil deposits
Around 125,000 of the 800,000 Guyanese live in the Essequibo region, which makes up around two thirds of Guyanese territory. Guyana points out that the current border was established by an arbitration court in 1899. Venezuela, on the other hand, claims that the Essequibo River in the east of the region forms a natural border that was recognized as early as 1777.
Caracas’ desires increased especially after the oil company ExxonMobil discovered an oil deposit in the area in 2015. Another significant oil discovery was made in the region in October, increasing Guyana’s reserves to at least 10 billion barrels – more than those of oil-rich Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates.
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