–Agree to meet again on the border controversy

FOLLOWING a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Guyana and Venezuela in New York over the weekend to discuss the border controversy, the two have reaffirmed their commitment to the Good Offices process, and agreed to meet again.

“The parties agreed to meet again to continue discussions within this framework, and to explore options for the resolution of the border controversy,” a note from the United Nations Media Centre said Monday.

During the two-day meeting, the Foreign Ministers and their delegations exchanged views on issues related to the controversy, with the aim of exploring options for a full agreement for its solution.
The meeting was facilitated by Personal Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Dag Nylander, and organised within the framework of the Good Offices mandate entrusted to the Secretary-General under the Geneva Agreement of 1966.

The two parties also reiterated that their governments will remain actively engaged with the Personal Representative.

In 2015, the Government of Guyana lobbied the then United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to take steps toward a resolution of the controversy, using an option from the menu as stated in the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

Article IV of the 1966 Geneva Agreement says if the controversy is not resolved following the selection of one of the means of peaceful settlement, then “the Secretary-General of the United Nations shall choose another of the means stipulated in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations and so on until the controversy has been resolved, or until all the means of peaceful settlement there contemplated have been exhausted.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has noted that in 2016, as a consequence of a stalemate on the matter, outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed with his successor, António Guterres, to continue to use the Good Offices Process until the end of 2017 as a means of arriving at a settlement.

According to the mandate of the Personal Representative, “If, by the end of 2017, the secretary-general concludes that no significant progress has been made toward arriving at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy, he will choose the International Court of Justice as the next means of settlement, unless the Governments of Guyana and Venezuela jointly request that he refrain from doing so.”

Since the appointment of Nylander on February 27, he has visited Guyana four times, holding talks with President David Granger and Foreign Minister Greenidge, among other Guyanese officials.
Additionally, in September, the Guyana delegation to the General Debate of 72nd Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly met with the secretary-general as well as Nylander. Informal discussions were also held with the Venezuelan counterparts.

In his address to the UN General Assembly this year, President Granger said Venezuela is increasingly becoming “more militaristic.”

“Four UN Secretaries-General have been seized of the Venezuelan claims. The choice has become one between just and peaceful settlement, in accordance with international law, and a Venezuelan posture of attrition that is increasingly more blustering and militaristic.

“In this matter, protraction is the enemy of resolution, and the ally of sustained conflict,” he told the world leaders.

The present Good Offices Process has been conducted since 1990. Venezuela is contending that the Arbitral Award of October 3, 1899 demarcating the border between Guyana (British Guiana at the time) and Venezuela is null and void. Consequently, it continues to lay claim to two-thirds of Guyana’s territory.