THIS week's announcement that Guyana's President, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, is to visit Suriname towards the end of this month is good news to us.

Mr. Jagdeo's planned summit with his Surinamese counterpart, Mr. Ronald Venetiaan, holds the prospect for the triumph of diplomacy over conflict.

Its greater import, though, is the opportunity it holds for two poor countries to channel their efforts towards co-operation for the benefit of their people.

Guyana, an English-speaking country on the South American mainland, is a founding member of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), which includes Jamaica. Dutch-speaking Suriname, its eastern neighbour, is a Caricom member of more recent vintage.

Good relations between Caricom member states is essential if the community is to fulfil its commitment to transform itself from a free trade and functional co-operation arrangement to a single market and economy. Both Venezuela and Suriname have signed off on this arrangement.

However, Suriname was allowed to enter Caricom notwithstanding an old border dispute with its neighbour over which side of the dividing Corentyne River that either country begins.

This dispute has also affected the delineation of their territorial seas and their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention.

This issue came to boil in 2000 when the former Suriname administration used its gunboat to chase an oil-prospecting vessel, which had a licence from Guyana, from an offshore area that Suriname considered its territorial sea.

Indeed, the possibility of conflict was grave and we commend the efforts of our own prime minister, Mr. P. J. Patterson, to broker a settlement between the two countries at sessions in Montego Bay. Mr. Patterson did not get a full agreement, but his efforts helped to lower tensions and helped to provide a framework on which both countries could build.

In that regard, we believe that we are on good grounds in saying that the efforts by Jamaica at Montego Bay contributed to the laying of the groundwork for this monthend's summit between presidents Jagdeo and Venetiaan.

Both sides are apparently willing to discuss the possibility of co-operation in marine exploration, including the search for oil. Which is a good thing if it allows for the exploitation of the resources of their overlapping EEZ for the people of both countries.

It is also a good development for the wider Caribbean region, especially from the countries of Caricom. For there could hardly be stability in nearby Trinidad and Tobago or any other country in the area if Suriname and Guyana are in conflict.

Moreover, disagreements between these two countries would also likely undermine Caricom's agenda for the development of a single economic space. (From yesterday's Jamaica Observer)