A senior U.S. official on Wednesday expressed Washington’s support for Guyana’s holding of oil tenders in territory claimed by Venezuela, whose President Nicolás Maduro called that support “outrageous interference” and accused his neighbor of acting like a “Cologne.” to behave.
“The United States supports Guyana’s sovereign right to exploit its own natural resources,” Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols wrote on social media.
“Efforts to violate Guyana’s sovereignty are unacceptable. We call on Venezuela to respect international law,” Nichols added on X, previously Twitter.
Venezuela considers the tenders to be illegal because they are carried out in “maritime areas up to the demarcation”.
Both countries claim sovereignty over Essequibo, a 160,000 square kilometer area rich in natural resources, in a long dispute that was revived in 2015 when American energy giant Exxon Mobil discovered oil deposits off its coasts.
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“We strongly reject the brazen interference of the United States, which, through Exxon Mobil and the Southern Command, has manipulated and bought the submissive politicians of Guyana, who have gradually turned this nation into a colony,” Maduro responded in X posted by Nichols News.
“It is an unacceptable conspiracy aimed at depriving us” of our “territorial rights,” the president continued.
In a statement, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry accused the United States of “fostering a dangerous escalation of a controversy that has been resolved for years through diplomatic and peaceful mechanisms.”
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“The Government of Guyana reserves the right to conduct economic development activities in any part of its territory or in any corresponding maritime area,” Georgetown stressed in a statement on Tuesday.
In December 2022, Guyana launched the first round of tenders for the exploitation of eleven oil field blocks in shallow waters and another three in deep and ultra-deep waters.
Guyana defends a border established by an arbitration tribunal in Paris in 1899, while Venezuela claims the Geneva Convention signed with the United Kingdom in 1966 before Guyana’s independence, which laid the groundwork for a negotiated settlement and ignored the previous treaty.
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