Guyana & Venezuela hold mediation talks with U.N Envoy on border controversy

Oct 29, 2017 News

Officials from Guyana and Venezuela started a two-day formal meeting yesterday in New York with the aim of mediating a solution to the decades-old border controversy that has overshadowed relations between the two South American nations.
Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the border controversy, Dag Halvor Nylander, is facilitating the meeting through the United Nations (U.N.) Good Officer Process which aims to actively engage both governments with a view to exploring and proposing options for a solution.
Guyana’s delegation is being led by Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge.
Since his appointment on February 27,last, Nylander has visited Guyana four times and held talks with President David Granger and Minister Greenidge, among others.
Additionally, in September, the Guyana delegation to the General Debate of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly met with the Secretary-General as well as. Nylander also held informal discussions with Venezuelan counterparts.
In 2015, Guyana requested the U.N. Secretary-General to take steps toward a resolution of the controversy using an option from the menu as stated in the Geneva Agreement of February 17, 1966. This decision was reached after Venezuela contended that the Arbitral Award of 1899, about the frontier between Venezuela and what is now Guyana, is null and void.
Further, in 2016, as a consequence of a stalemate on the matter, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed with his successor, Mr. António Guterres, to continue to use the Good Officer Process until the end of 2017 as a means of arriving at a settlement.
If, by the end of 2017, the Secretary-General concludes that no significant progress has been made toward arriving at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy, he will choose the International Court of Justice as the next means of settlement, unless the Governments of Guyana and Venezuela jointly request that he refrain from doing so.”
The present Good Officer Process has been conducted since 1990 and Guyana Guyana has maintained that the only way to settle the controversy is by way of a juridical settlement at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Venezuela’s claim to two-thirds of Guyana has escalated over the years, with various shows of aggression and harassment.

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