Guyana, Suriname border commissions to meet next month
Stabroek News
May 18, 2002
The Guyana/Suriname Border Commissions will meet on June 25-26 and the sub-committee tasked with looking at best practices to assist in making a decision about joint exploitation of the resources in the disputed maritime area will meet on May 30. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the dates of the two meetings yesterday in a release to the media.
The borders commissions were to have met by mid-May following an agreement reached by President Bharrat Jagdeo and Suriname's President Ronald Venetiaan when the former visited Suriname in January.
They agreed that the sub-committee would meet before the border commissions to allow the commissions to deliberate on the committee's findings and recommendations.
The Foreign Ministry yesterday said that the release about the meetings issued by the Government Information Agency on Thursday "does not accurately reflect the progress made by Guyana and Suriname to facilitate formal discussions on issues related to the border between the two countries." That release had said that the proposed meeting of the sub-committee had been "postponed indefinitely at the request of the Government of Suriname". The sub-committee meeting is crucial in the context of the impasse between the two countries over offshore oil exploration.
The impasse arose after the Suriname Navy evicted an exploration rig from Guyana's waters in June 2000.