by Our Foreign Desk

GUYANA’S President David Granger expressed satisfaction at the weekend with the solidarity offered to his country by other Caribbean Community (Caricom) member states in its territorial dispute with Venezuela.

“Caricom is united solidly behind ensuring that there is no disruption to the peace and stability of the region,” he told a news conference in Barbados where the community’s annual summit was held.

Caricom chairman and Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart confirmed that the grouping was firmly with Guyana on the border controversy.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro issued a decree on May 27, extending his country’s maritime border to take in all the Atlantic coastal waters off the Essequibo area to which Caracas still lays claim.

Mr Stuart said Caricom would seek to preserve existing good relations with Venezuela, vowing: “We are not about to try to disrupt that relationship or to pollute it any way by anything that we as a community say or do.”

He noted too that Venezuela has pledged to maintain peace.

St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves emphasised that the region needed to avoid an escalation of conflict or “active disruption in violence,” adding: “It is not that because you have a dispute over a piece of land as a neighbour that you must not speak to your neighbour.”

Mr Gonsalves acknowledged that six Caricom states are members of regional development initiative Alba, while others, including Guyana, benefit from the PetroCaribe concessionary oil arrangement.