London, United Kingdom announced this Sunday the sending of a military ship to Guyanaa former colony that faces redoubled territorial claims by Venezuela over the Essequibo, a region rich in oil and representing two-thirds of its surface.
“The ‘HMS Trent’ will sail this month towards Guyana, our regional ally and partner within the framework of the Commonwealthfor a series of commitments in the region,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement, in which it did not give further details.
According to the BBC, the ship must participate in military maneuvers after Christmas with other allies of Guyana, which was a British colony until 1966. The British network did not specify which other countries will collaborate in the mission.
London had already shown its support for Guyana with the trip earlier in the week of David Rutley, head of British diplomacy in America.
He ‘HMS Trent‘, which usually operates in the Mediterranean Sea, had already traveled to the Caribbean at the beginning of December to fight drug trafficking.
Venezuela has claimed sovereignty over this 160,000 km2 territory for more than a century. But their claim intensified after the discovery of vast oil reserves in this region in 2015.
Guyana defends that an arbitration court in Paris determined the borders between Venezuela and the then colony in 1899.
Tensions between both countries increased after the holding of a referendum on the sovereignty of Essequibo on December 3 in Venezuela.
However, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his Guyanese counterpart, Irfaan Ali, met on December 15 and reduced the tension, although they did not resolve their underlying differences.
Source: AFP
