NEW YORK USA (CMC) — Guyana says the ongoing border dispute with Venezuela is becoming a “serious problem” to the efforts to develop the Caribbean Community (Caricom) country.

President David Granger on Thursday evening raised the issie when he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a series of meetings on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly here.

He said the closed door talks between the two delegations included the country’s border dispute with Venezuela that flared up in May when President Nicolas Maduro issued a decree claiming ownership of all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast.

The purported annexation of the waters off Essequibo now takes in the oil-rich Stabroek Block, where American oil giant Exxon Mobil in May found a “significant” reserve of high quality crude oil.

Exxon Mobil said the discovery was made in one of the two wells it dug, in the Liza-1 drill site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone.

Granger noted that in recent days Venezuela has been deploying troops along the border, including the deployment of tanks and missiles.

“We have alerted the international community and we look to India, particularly as a strong member of the Commonwealth, to give us support and to lead the debate to ensure the security of small states if guaranteed,” President Granger said.

He said that while he was willing to meet with Maduro, at a meeting being organised by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, he will again be pushing for the matter to be taken to the International Court of Justice.

“For our part, we have decided that after 50 years of harassment and provocation, we need to aim at a juridical settlement and we have indicated to the United Nations that we prefer to go to court. So the actual Good Officers process, after several decades, has not borne fruit. We don’t feel the prolongation of that process will be helpful.”

President Granger said the Venezuelan claim is not only hampering Guyana’s economic development and exploitation of natural resources, such as petroleum, but it is also becoming aggressive.

“It is becoming a serious problem, not only in Guyana on our western frontier and Cuyuni area, but in the Caribbean region,” he added.

He said the meeting with Modi on Thursday evening was important, given that “we have very strong bilateral relations with the Republic of India and the meeting with Prime Minister Modi served as a renewal and a recommitment, not only to our long-standing friendship and our cordial relations, but also to the specific commitments to agreements entered into over the last 10 years”.

He said that while there was no attempt to gain any assurances from India on its position at this time, he will be meeting with Prime Minister Modi in November in Malta during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.