In the wake of reports that Russia wants to deploy military aircraft at a Venezuelan airbase in the Caribbean Sea, Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge says Guyana is concerned.
“When I read the reports of (military) bases and other development taking place (in Venezuela), we are inevitably very concerned. We will be responding within that context, that this is not a place where we would welcome these types of struggles that threaten the quality and the lives of the occupants of this region,” he said.
Citing a Russian newspaper, Reuters reported recently that Russia wants to deploy strategic aircraft to a military airfield on the island of La Orchila off the coast of Venezuela. Venezuela’s laws do not allow it to host foreign military bases, but it can temporarily host foreign military planes, the newspaper wrote. It said Caracas had offered to host Russian planes there in the past and that Moscow had not taken up the offer, but that it had had a change of heart in light of the U.S. plan to exit a Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty with Russia.