Stabroek News
May 26, 2001

CARICOM Foreign Ministers have noted with concern Venezuela's continuing attempts to deter foreign investment in the Essequibo.

According to a communique issued at the end of the Fourth Council for Foreign and Community Relations Meeting in Georgetown this week, the ministers were also concerned over reports of Venezuela's intention to execute an exploratory programme for hydrocarbons within Guyana's maritime zone.

Any such move by Venezuela would be considered by the ministers to be a breach of accepted norms of international law.

In addition to the border issue with Guyana, the communique further mentioned that maritime boundary delimitation issues between Venezuela and the Eastern Caribbean islands, had arisen in relation to the Avez island. These issues were of great concern to CARICOM member states.

The ministers said that they were keen on sustaining and strengthening the process of regular dialogue with their US counterpart. The ministers acknowledged that there were scheduling difficulties which led to the postponement of the proposed first encounter with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and welcomed the latter's firm commitment to have the encounter rescheduled at a mutually convenient time in the near future.

It was their collective view that "dialogue with the United Sates administration should be based on a carefully defined and sharply focused strategic framework embracing themes of mutual interest which lend themselves to consensus action with positive and beneficial outcomes for all parties."

The communique also indicated that the ministers had agreed on a strategy to deepen and widen CARICOM participation in the Organisation of American States (OAS). Central to this decision was a commitment to participate actively in efforts to restructure, strengthen and modernize the OAS Secretariat to enable it to effectively discharge the mandates assigned to it in the Summit of Americas' process.

They were concerned, however, that existing priorities for the region should not be compromised in the fulfilment of new mandates.