Dr. Luncheon not worried about Guyana’s submission to  Treaty bodies
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat and Top Government spokesman, Dr. Roger Luncheon, does not believe that the technical bodies reviewing Guyana’s application for an extension of the country’s continental shelf will be influenced by the statements emanating from Venezuela claiming that Guyana did not notify its westerly neighbour of its plans. He was speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing held at the Office of the President yesterday.
“The application would be considered by the Treaty bodies. I don’t believe that the parties to the Treaty under which we have sought the extension of the continental shelf are going to be duly influenced by differences between the Government of Guyana and the Government of Venezuela. These are very technical bodies – as technical as the one that resolved the issue in the ‘east’ and I think that they are going to stick to the technical aspects of our submission,” he said.
In a statement to the media on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied not communicating to Venezuela, Guyana’s plans to submit a claim for the extension of its continental shelf.
According to an article in Monday’s edition of the English online edition of El Universal, the Venezuelan government promised to “continue advocating the country’s pivotal interests in the firmest manner by means of internationally established mechanisms of dialogue” and reasserted its commitment to the Good Offices of the UN General Secretariat with regard to the claim to Essequibo.
The report said that, in a press release, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied to a report submitted by Guyana to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, according to which, “there are not relevant disputes on the region linked to this submission, related to the outside boundaries of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.” The article stated that as a result, the Venezuelan claim to Essequibo has been disregarded.
“The Bolivarian government, acting responsibly, has started to assess such an irregular situation to give a right answer under International Law, and it is taking the necessary action to preserve the law in its own right with regard to the extent of its maritime front,” said the report out of Venezuela.
But a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Government of Guyana is aware of a communiqué that the Ministry of External Relations of Venezuela issued regarding Guyana’s submission of a claim to extend the continental shelf.
The Government of Guyana cited a Note Verbale dated May 13, 2009 in which it was noted that the Venezuelan Embassy was provided with a copy of the Preliminary Information and Data which Guyana submitted to the United Nations Secretary-General.
Guyana said that the documents constitute the Executive Summary of Guyana’s full submission on the limits of the continental shelf except for the fact that it has adjusted coordinates for the outer limits of the continental shelf. The ministry said that this was based on additional seismic data that was obtained after May 2009.
The Government of Guyana said it wishes to state that, as was made pellucid in Guyana’s submission to the Commission on the outer limits of the continental shelf, Guyana’s submission of information and data pursuant to Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are without prejudice to any future delimitation exercise with neighbouring states.
“The Communiqué from [Venezuela] recognises that fact since it declares that the submission of the Republic of Guyana does not prejudice eventual maritime delimitation between Guyana and Venezuela,” the ministry said in its statement.
The Government of Guyana expressed the hope that this issue would not be allowed to adversely affect “the exceptionally good relations that exist between the Republic of Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”