JESSE RAMDEO
Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

This coun­try’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs says oth­er av­enues for res­o­lu­tion still ex­ist, in the event to­mor­row's meet­ing be­tween Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro of Venezuela, and Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali of Guyana fail to set­tle the bor­der im­passe.

As ten­sions rise over the Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion, both men will par­tic­i­pate in the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed talks, which many are hop­ing will take down tem­per­a­tures.

The meet­ing in St Vin­cent and The Grenadines was or­ga­nized by the Com­mu­ni­ty of States of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, as well as CARI­COM.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Amery Browne, if the de­sired out­come is not achieved to­mor­row, there were oth­er paths that can be pur­sued to en­sure the dis­pute is ironed out.

“This is a case where there are a num­ber of oth­er fo­ra, and pos­si­bil­i­ties avail­able,” he ex­plained.  “It is the de­sire of CARI­COM—with the full in­volve­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go—to achieve a calm­ing of this sit­u­a­tion.”

The For­eign Min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed that the T&T Gov­ern­ment will not act alone in at­tempt­ing to ven­ti­late the on­go­ing mat­ter be­tween the neigh­bour­ing na­tions. 

“Notwith­stand­ing the bad ad­vice float­ed in the pub­lic do­main from time to time, Trinidad and To­ba­go is not—and will not—go out on any ad­ven­ture on its own in these mat­ters. We are firm­ly root­ed with­in a unit­ed re­gion­al, CARI­COM re­sponse,” he stat­ed.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the Op­po­si­tion had called on Gov­ern­ment to act as a me­di­a­tor in the cur­rent cri­sis.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is sched­uled to at­tend to­mor­row's meet­ing.