Chavez says Venezuela will exert sovereignty in maritime border area with Guyana -- El Nacional Stabroek News July 23, 2000 Venezuela too can grant oil concessions in the maritime border zone, just as Guyana has done already in areas which have not been demarcated, according to President Hugo Chavez. A report in the July 15 edition of the Venezuelan daily El Nacional quoted Chavez as saying that Venezuelan sovereignty would be confirmed over an area which included "a vast sea which was abandoned and an area in which is found the delta Orinoco and the territorial sea in the zone of reclamation [Essequibo]." The paper reported him as asserting that if Guyana could grant oil concessions in maritime areas which had not been demarcated, then Venezuela could do so as well. "We want to consolidate our exclusive economic zone," he said. In the same edition, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Rangel was reported as commenting on a seismic study to be undertaken to locate hydrocarbons on the continental shelf. The project would be executed by the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, with the assistance of the navy, and Rangel was quoted as indicating that this formed "part of the sovereignty exercise of the country." The paper later reported Chavez as adding that the study was to determine the size of the proven reserves of hydrocarbons in the border area with Essequibo. At the same time, the report said, a 'floating' station was to be set up on the eastern side of the Orinoco delta to serve as a command base to provide logistical support for two patrols. The same El Nacional report also quoted the Venezuelan President as eschewing the use of force to settle its border controversy with Guyana over the Essequibo region. Chavez's comments came in reaction to remarks made by opposition candidate in the Venezuelan presidential elections, Francisco Arias Cardenas, who had warned of the possibility that the Venezuelan government might be considering armed incursion against Guyana. "We are a government with a very clear foreign policy of peace, of brotherhood, which does not imply that we are not going to reclaim our historical rights," the daily quoted Chavez as saying; "we shall exhaust all political and diplomatic channels for direct talks with Guyana and with the United Nations." Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today