The U.S. State De­part­ment’s Bu­reau of West­ern Hemi­sphere is­sued a stern state­ment on Sat­ur­day af­ter a Venezue­lan ves­sel had ap­proached Guyana’s as­sets with­in its ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone (EEZ).

The state­ment con­demned the ac­tions, de­scrib­ing them as an un­ac­cept­able threat to Guyana’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised mar­itime ter­ri­to­ry.

“Venezue­lan naval ves­sels threat­en­ing Exxon­Mo­bil’s float­ing pro­duc­tion, stor­age, and of­fload­ing (FP­SO) unit is un­ac­cept­able and a clear vi­o­la­tion of Guyana’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised mar­itime ter­ri­to­ry. Fur­ther provo­ca­tion will re­sult in con­se­quences for the Maduro regime. The Unit­ed States reaf­firms its sup­port for Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and the 1899 ar­bi­tral award.”

The U.S. State De­part­ment’s state­ment re­in­forces its strong back­ing for Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al rights, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the 1899 ar­bi­tral award that de­ter­mines the bound­ary be­tween Venezuela and Guyana.

The in­ci­dent un­fold­ed on Sat­ur­day and short­ly af­ter Pres­i­dent Dr. Ir­faan Ali ad­dressed the na­tion and not­ed that the as­sets in ques­tion are law­ful­ly sit­u­at­ed with­in Guyana’s EEZ, em­pha­sis­ing that the Venezue­lan ves­sel’s ac­tions were in vi­o­la­tion of Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty.

The ves­sel, ac­cord­ing to the Pres­i­dent, had is­sued a ra­dio mes­sage claim­ing it was op­er­at­ing in what it de­scribed as “dis­put­ed in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters” be­fore con­tin­u­ing its south-west­er­ly course to­ward oth­er off­shore fa­cil­i­ties.

In his ad­dress, Ali firm­ly re­ject­ed the Venezue­lan claim.

“Let me be un­equiv­o­cal. Mar­itime bound­aries are recog­nised un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, and this is a mat­ter of grave con­cern.”

He al­so as­sured the na­tion that the Guyanese gov­ern­ment was han­dling the sit­u­a­tion with ut­most se­ri­ous­ness and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Mar 1, CMC –  

CMC/ gy/kb/2025