Venezuela has nothing to fear from activities within Guyana’s waters, President Irfaan Ali said yesterday in an apparent response to Caracas’ concerns about a UK warship that is due to anchor off this country’s coast in the coming hours.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has again escalated tensions by charging yesterday that the imminent arrival of HMS Trent is a transgression of the understandings reached in St Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this month to de-escalate tensions between the two countries over their border controversy.
The Associated Press (AP) yesterday reported that Maduro ordered Vene-zuela’s armed forces to conduct defensive exercises in the Eastern Caribbean after the United Kingdom dispatched the warship toward Guyana’s territorial waters.