Caracas, October 7 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rejected statements by Guyana’s new U.S. Ambassador Perry Holloway regarding the dispute between the neighboring territories over the Essequibo region.
“United States, take your hands off of the Guyana Essequibo,” said Maduro. “We will not accept your interference any longer.” Maduro's comments came just a few hours after the Foreign Ministry expressed its strong opposition to recent statements from the U.S. ambassador in Guyana.
The text argues that Ambassador Holloway's comments are "further evidence of intrusion on the part of the U.S. government on issues that concern only Venezuela and Guyana, in its obsession to damage brotherly relations between the countries of the Caribbean."
The criticism comes after Ambassador Holloway called on Venezuela to respect the 1899 decision over the territory. However, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry responded that the parties responsible for that decision were "senior U.S. officials in collusion with right-wing mercenaries of the old British Empire."
In the statement, the Venezuelan government denounces U.S. interference, claiming it stems from a "calculated strategy to try to validate, by way of intimidation, the null rights of Exxon Mobil to carry out extractive activities in a disputed territory and regulated by the Geneva Agreement of 1966."
The statement urged the United States not to get involved "directly or indirectly in matters that exclusively belong to the parties involved in the territorial dispute," particularly because the United States "is one of those responsible for the fraud against Venezuela and therefore responsible for the existence of the dispute itself. "
"We want brotherly relations with Guyana,” Maduro said at the U.N., after his meeting with Granger in late September. “For the many differences we may have, our people are destined to brotherhood."