Great Britain sends warship to Guyana
The Essequibo region in Guyana has large oil reserves. This is arousing the covetousness of neighboring Venezuela. Although both countries have agreed to refrain from violence, the conflict is escalating. And now the former colonial power Great Britain is also getting involved.
In the midst of the border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region, the UK has announced the deployment of a warship - thereby arousing the ire of the government in Caracas. The British Ministry of Defense stated that the "HMS Trent" would visit the "regional ally and Commonwealth partner Guyana" in December. This is part of the warship's patrol mission in the Atlantic.
According to media reports, the "HMS Trent" is currently in Barbados and is then due to sail to the coast of the former British colony of Guyana. According to the British broadcaster BBC, maneuvers are planned with other countries. The warship, which is normally stationed in the Mediterranean, was sent to the Caribbean at the beginning of December to combat drug smuggling.
Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López described the deployment of the ship to Guyana as a "provocation". Such provocations would "endanger peace and stability" in the region, the minister wrote on X. He also referred to an agreement reached in mid-December between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Guyana's head of state Irfaan Ali, in which both sides pledged to renounce violence and threats of violence.
More oil than in Kuwait
Tensions had previously escalated over the Essequibo region in Guyana, which Venezuela has claimed as its own for more than a century. At the beginning of December, participants in a non-binding referendum in Venezuela voted overwhelmingly in favor of the South American country's claim to Essequibo, according to government figures. Shortly afterwards, Maduro called for the area to be declared a Venezuelan province by law and for licenses to be issued for oil production.
Around 125,000 of the 800,000 inhabitants of the former British and Dutch colony of Guyana live in Essequibo. Caracas' desires increased after the oil company ExxonMobil discovered an oil deposit in the area in 2015. In October, another significant oil discovery was made in the region, increasing Guyana's reserves to more than those of oil-rich Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates.
In mid-December, Presidents Maduro and Ali agreed to renounce violence at a meeting in the island state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. However, this does not change the fact that Venezuela continues to lay claim to the territory.
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Source: www.ntv.de
