HAVANA, December 13. /TASS/. Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali hopes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will urge his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, at their upcoming meeting in Moscow to abide by the UN International Court of Justice rulings on the Venezuelan-Guyanese territorial dispute.
"I saw in the UN Security Council that Russia said that Venezuela must respect international law. So, I hope that President [Vladimir] Putin will tell President [Nicolas] Maduro that he should respect the decision of the UN International Court of Justice," Ali told BBC News Mundo and BBC News Brasil.
Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the issue of the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana lies within the scope of bilateral relations and should be resolved in a good-neighborly manner. Moscow also urged the parties to refrain from any actions that could unbalance the situation and cause mutual damage.
Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov told reporters on December 5 that the Venezuelan president's visit to Moscow is planned for December, with specific dates to be announced in the coming days.
Territorial conflict
The dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the ownership of 159,500 square kilometers of territory west of the Essequibo River has been ongoing for over a century. The disputed land area comprises more than two-thirds of Guyana and is home to 283,000 people out of a total population of 800,000. The territorial dispute has been aggravated by the discovery in 2015 of oil fields containing at least 10 bln barrels of oil and the granting by Guyana of a concession to oil major ExxonMobil for petroleum production on Guyana’s continental shelf, the boundaries of which have not been delimited.
The UN International Court of Justice recognized in April that Guyana's claim against Venezuela for demarcation of the border between the neighboring countries is admissible for consideration on the basis of the decision of the arbitration court that adjudicated the matter in Paris in 1899, at which, under pressure from Great Britain, 90% of the disputed territory was transferred, using doctored maps, to its then-colony of British Guiana. Venezuela, which refers to the disputed area as Guayana Esequiba and recognizes it as its legitimate territory, believes that the conflict is not subject to the jurisdiction of the UN International Court of Justice and insists on demarcation of the borders through direct negotiations with Guyana, which is stipulated in the Geneva Agreement of 1966.