The Foreign Ministers of Venezuela and Guyana, Yván Gil and Hugh Todd, respectively, met for seven hours on Jan. 25 at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. It was their first meeting since the day-long meeting of their Presidents in Argyle, the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) on Dec.14 in the midst of escalating border tensions. Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira served as the principal “interlocutor” for the Ministers’ discussions, accompanied by Ambassador Gareth Bynoe of SVG, which currently holds the Presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The body language, as well as the words, of the Ministers were friendly. Both nations clearly seek to head off a confrontation despite their very serious differences over territorial claims and how those should be resolved. Vieira reported at the conclusion that both committed to continuing talks and presented their proposed agendas for the next round of talks, which are also to be held in Brazil, although the date was not set.
The three Foreign Ministers spoke with reporters after the talks. Todd called the talks “a good start.… We are permanent neighbors, we should be capable of finding common interests.” Todd mentioned transnational organized crime, economic cooperation, climate change and Venezuela’s migrant crisis as areas for possible collaboration, saying he was “going back to headquarters Georgetown to continue working on advancing neighborly relations to the west, with support from our neighbor to the south, Brazil,” Newsroom.gy reported.
Gil described their talks as “a very frank, open discussion, without limitations,” and emphasized that they “will continue to approach the issue through diplomatic channels,” Poder 360 reported. “No party will resort to mentions or threats of invoking force, including involving a 3rd party,” he added.
The greedy eagerness of the ugly U.K.-U.S. duo to use the dispute as a pretext to get their troops into South American soil, dictate conditions and carry out regime change had not gone unnoticed by any of the parties. Brazil’s Vieira summed up the spirit of the talks:
“As we face the wars that are raging in different parts of the world, we have learned to value all the more our Latin American and Caribbean culture of peaceful settlement of disputes, the basis of the community of interests that unites us, in an environment free of geopolitical tensions of extra-regional origin. I therefore hope that our brothers and sisters in Venezuela and Guyana will continue to build the trust necessary to think about a common horizon, in which the ties that correspond to good neighbors will contribute to the well-being of both peoples.”
