The government plans to increase its investment in the military and continue pursuing defence cooperation opportunities with international allies.
Speaking to media operatives at his weekly press conference at Freedom House on Thursday, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, said that these investments are of a purely defensive nature since Guyana remains committed to maintaining a zone of peace.
He was at the time addressing questions regarding the recent tensions amidst the ongoing border controversy.
Dr Jagdeo added that the recent meeting between President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in St Vincent and the Grenadines has been instrumental in reducing tensions.
“We have to spend more now on defence of ensuring that we grow our capability to protect this country. We made it clear in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines that our engagement with our international partners to build capacity of a defensive nature. So, we made it clear we are not planning to attack Venezuela or any other country for that matter,” he said.
Following this meeting, the joint declaration of Argyle for dialogue and peace between Guyana and Venezuela was released, which essentially outlined that the two countries have agreed not to use or threaten force against each other.
In this declaration, the two countries also agreed to the establishment of a joint commission of the Foreign Ministers.
Additionally, the two countries agreed to meet again in Brazil.“Everyone wants the region to remain a zone of peace because we benefit from that globally. So we went to Saint Vincent, determined to hold to our position that the ICJ process is going to be preserved and we will pursue it to its conclusion, notwithstanding what the Venezuelan position is and that became very clear. That was the conclusion of the agreement that there is no room now for a return to the bilateral engagement on that particular matter, but there are several issues that could be discussed at the bilateral level that are outside of that single issue,” the GS reminded.
