GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Sep 25 2015 – Former Guyana president Bharrat Jagdeo Friday says the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is prepared to lobby the international community in the ongoing border dispute with Guyana and urged Georgetown to have an open channel with Caracas.
Jagdeo told a news conference that while he is still to be briefed by the David Granger government on the situation, the PPP stands ready to support the government on the issue of the country’s sovereignty.
“The government has not contacted us and I don’t want to say anything that would put our government in a difficult position, so I will wait until we have heard from the government about the gravity of the situation and what they are doing.”
But he said “there is no room belligerence, pugnacious or arrogant foreign policy,” and urged Georgetown to continue with its diplomacy and dialogue on the matter.
On Thursday night, President Granger, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a series of meetings with world leaders to discuss the border dispute with Venezuela that flared up in May when President Nicolas Maduro issued a Decree 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.
