UN team in Guyana to explore options of settling border dispute

Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet with top government and opposition officials

A United Nations delegation is currently in Guyana on a fact-finding mission aimed at exploring options to settle the decades old territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the mission will meet with top government and opposition officials before leaving on September 2.

The UN mission will meet with Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge, former Guyana Facilitator in the Good Officer Process Ralph Ramkarran, and former Commonwealth Secretary General Sir Shridath Ramphal.

The UN is hoping to broker a meeting with President David Granger and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on the margins of the UN General Assembly to be held in September.

Venezuela has renewed its claim to the mineral and forest-rich Essequibo region and all of the Atlantic Sea off the Essequibo Region.

Maduro issued a Decree on May 26 that includes all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast.

The purported annexation of the waters off Essequibo now takes in the oil-rich Stabroek Block, where American oil giant Exxon Mobil in May found a "significant" reserve of high quality crude oil.

ExxonMobil said the discovery was made in one of the two wells it dug, in the Liza-1 drill site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone.