CARACAS, January 16. /TASS/. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro again asserted his country’s rights to the Guyana Essequibo region, the subject of a territorial dispute with neighboring Guyana.

"The organic law to protect Guyana Essequibo will be adopted soon," Maduro said in his annual address to the National Assembly on Monday, which was broadcast by all Venezuelan TV channels. The parliament passed a bill in the first reading for formally establishing the State of Guyana Essequibo as Venezuela’s 24th state on December 6, 2023.

According to Maduro, the consultative referendum on the territorial dispute with neighboring Guyana, which was held on December 3, consolidated society on the issue of Venezuela’s ownership of the region, "despite political, social, economic, religious and cultural differences."

"Today, we have a national mandate, a special safe plan to make the motto vivid and clear in the hearts of our children, men and women: ‘The Venezuelan sun rises in Essequibo!’" the Venezuelan president said to the applause of all lawmakers, military officials, ministers and party leaders present.

The dispute between Caracas and Georgetown over ownership of the 159,500 square kilometer territory west of the Essequibo River has been ongoing for over a century. The territorial dispute has been further 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 demarcated.

On December 14, Venezuela and Guyana agreed not to use force over their border dispute, following negotiations in Kingstown, capital of Caribbean island nation Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Both parties also committed to ensuring that Latin America remains a zone of peace and said that they would refrain from escalating the situation in the disputed border region.