PRESIDENT David Granger met with the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Mr. António Guterres on Monday at a time when Venezuela has joined Guyana in its call for a peaceful settlement of the ongoing border controversy.

At the UN Headquarters in New York, Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge; Presidential Adviser on Petroleum, Dr. Jan Mangal, Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Audrey Waddell, Sir Shridath Ramphal and Permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations, Ambassador Michael Ten-Pow, accompanied President Granger to the high-level meeting. The UN Secretary-General’s Personal Representative, Dag Nylander, along with other U.N officials were also present.
Though details of the meeting have not been disclosed, the Guyana Chronicle was told that the President was briefed on the work being done by Nylander, who has been mandated to facilitate the Good Offices Process for 2017. The former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Mr. Guterres, in keeping with the tenets of the 1966 Geneva Agreement, agreed to refer the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if significant progress is not made in arriving at a full agreement for the settlement of the controversy at the level of the Good Offices process. Venezuela is claiming that the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award, which had given more than 90 percent of an area to then British Guiana (now Guyana), is null and void.

Approximately 118 years after that award was issued, the Government of Guyana holds strongly to the view that a juridical course of action is the only means through which this matter can be permanently resolved.
A few hours before the meeting with the UN Secretary-General, Minister Greenidge told journalists that the President will detail the implications of the controversy and its negative impact on Guyana when the meeting is held.

“We will draw to his attention the concerns of Guyana that this matter be resolved in a definitive matter and to impress upon him that he has obligations as it regards time and the manner of resolution,” Greenidge said.

When Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza addressed the General Debate for the United Nations General Assembly, he, on behalf of President Nicolas Maduro, said the country is interested in an amicable settlement with Guyana. “We are in the home of peace, a home of peaceful settlements to territorial of international law and its principles. We are embraced and protected by the Charter of the United Nations, a noble, multilateral instrument to avoid all war and injustice,” the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said through an interpreter. Details of Monday’s meeting with the UN Secretary-General are expected to be made public during a press conference today at the UN, as the curtain comes down on the 72nd Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly.