Venezuela and Guyana to discuss UN role in border controversy

Sunday, February 15, 2004

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP): Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana will meet here next Thursday to review the United Nations mechanism set up to resolve a more than 100-year-old border dispute between their neighboring countries, the Guyanese Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Chavez was due to visit this former British colony on February 19 and "high on the agenda for those discussions will be a review of the Good Offices Process under the auspices of the UN Secretary General," Kofi Annan.

Shortly after Chavez swept to power, his administration said it wanted Venezuela's claim to the mineral and timber-rich Essequibo region, which comprises about two-thirds of Guyana's 83,000-square-mile territory, to be settled bilaterally because United Nations mediation was taking too long. 

Chavez is expected, during his visit here, to address Guyana's 65-member parliament, meet with Opposition Leader Robert Corbin, Speaker of Parliament Ralph Ram Karran, and Edwin Carrington, Secretary General of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

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