Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, has described the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela as both “delicate” and “challenging.”
He shared his views following a meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday.
Gonsalves serves as the interlocutor in the 2023 Argyle Declaration, an agreement between the two nations to maintain peace in the region while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hears the matter concerning Venezuela’s claim over Guyana’s Essequibo region.
A press release from St Vincent’s Agency of Public Information did not disclose the outcome of the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Venezuelan President, but it reiterated Dr Gonsalves’s stance that both nations must uphold the Argyle Declaration to ensure peace and stability across the Caribbean and Latin American regions.
“This is a delicate matter and… a challenging one,” Gonsalves stated, warning that failure to honour the Declaration could have “horrendous” consequences, potentially setting back progress for an entire generation. He further emphasised that if the Essequibo dispute is not resolved peacefully, “this part of the world will be put into turmoil.”
The release also highlighted that both Guyana and Venezuela have been urged to act in the best interests of the region. It cautioned that any escalation into open conflict “could devastate both nations economically and socially, destabilise the entire Latin American and Caribbean region, and potentially lead to a humanitarian and refugee crisis.”
Dr Gonsalves therefore advised both parties to refrain from any actions that could lead to open conflict.
His visit to Venezuela followed an intrusion by a Venezuelan military vessel into Guyana’s exclusive economic maritime zone on 1 March 2025. The armed vessel approached ExxonMobil-operated FPSOs and falsely informed the captains that they were operating in Venezuelan waters. The intrusion received widespread international condemnation.
