KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) – Guyana’s President, Dr Irfaan Ali, and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, are scheduled to meet in St Vincent and the Grenadines on Thursday amidst heightened tension over the long-running border conflict between the two countries.

St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, made the announcement at a news conference in St Vincent. He said the two leaders would meet in Kingstown, and the decision was communicated in a letter that he wrote to Presidents Ali and Maduro on Saturday.

In his letter, Prime Minister Gonsalves said that both leaders had agreed to meet face-to-face under the auspices of the Community of States of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAC), of which St Vincent and the Grenadines is the pro tempore chair, and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), whose current chairman is the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit.

The letter stated that Ali and Maduro had requested the presence of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and an invitation had been sent to him.

“Given the recent events and circumstances attendant upon the border controversy, the leadership of CELAC and Caricom have assessed, in the interest of all concerned, including our Caribbean and Latin American civilizations, the urgent need to de-escalate the conflict and institute an appropriate dialogue, face-to-face between the Presidents of Guyana and Venezuela,” Gonsalves wrote.

Gonsalves told reporters that the “discussion would relate to matters consequential upon the border controversy which exists between Guyana and Venezuela,” indicating that he did not intend to address the matter until Monday.

“Today, I can’t answer what is going to be the outcome. What I do know with certainty is that it is better for people in conflict to be talking,” Gonsalves said. “You can resolve misunderstandings — agent provocateurs can create challenges also. And if you’re talking, and you’re respectful, and you’re mature and understanding and wise, and you take your populations along with you in that particular process, you are less likely to end up with threats of force or the actual use of force.”

Gonsalves, who last Friday participated in a meeting of Caricom leaders to discuss the Guyana-Venezuela border issue, pointed out that at the discussions in Paris in the early 1970s to end the Vietnam War, a long period of time was spent discussing the shape of the table and the seating arrangements for the disputants.

“The point I’m making is that… we just have to be mature and wise, respectful, patient and calm,” Gonsalves said.

Last Sunday, Venezuela staged a referendum in which it claimed that 95 per cent of the votes cast were in support of the annexation of the Essequibo region, and President Maduro announced soon afterwards that foreign companies working in the Essequibo region would have to withdraw within three months.

He said he was also proposing a special law to prohibit all companies that work under Guyana concessions from any transaction and that Caracas would be creating a military unit for the disputed territory, but it would be based in a neighbouring Venezuelan state.

Prior to the referendum, the International Court of Justice had ruled that Venezuela must not take any action to seize Essequibo, which has been administered by Guyana for more than a century.

Essequibo makes up about two-thirds of Guyanese territory and is home to 125,000 of the country’s 800,000 citizens but is also claimed by Venezuela.

In its ruling, the Court said, “unanimously both parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the court or make it more difficult to resolve.