For­mer Com­mon­wealth sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal, is warn­ing that “false ex­pec­ta­tions should not be en­cour­aged” ahead of the up­com­ing bi-lat­er­al dis­cus­sion be­tween Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali and Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, which is set to take place in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Sir Shri­dath is the lat­est to add his voice to the on­go­ing dis­pute over the con­tentious Es­se­qui­bo re­gion. The meet­ing on Thurs­day has been or­gan­ised by the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) and the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States, as ten­sions es­ca­late over the min­er­al-rich ter­ri­to­ry.

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves con­firmed that Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Ina­cio Lu­la da Sil­va has al­so been in­vit­ed to the meet­ing.

On De­cem­ber 3, Venezue­lans - through a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum - vot­ed for the cre­ation of a new area, which com­pris­es two-thirds of the re­gion of Guyana, and re­ject­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice’s or­der to not take any ac­tion to al­ter the own­er­ship of Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Sir Shri­dath sup­port­ed the meet­ing.

“It is in that con­text, and with per­fect aware­ness that the Guyana-Venezuela mat­ter is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion by the ICJ and that the Court’s pro­ceed­ings can­not be com­pro­mised, that Cari­com Heads have called for an ap­pro­pri­ate di­a­logue be­tween the lead­ers of Guyana and Venezuela: to en­sure `peace­ful co-ex­is­tence’, the ap­pli­ca­tion and re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law’, and the avoid­ance of the use of threats of force,” he said.

Sir Shri­dath added that there was no call for any dis­cus­sion on the con­tro­ver­sy over the Es­se­qui­bo.

“It is with­in those pa­ra­me­ters that Guyana’s Pres­i­dent has re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to the re­gion’s call for an ‘ap­pro­pri­ate’ di­a­logue with Venezuela’s Pres­i­dent. Guyana has al­ways urged Venezuela in the di­rec­tion of peace­ful co-ex­is­tence. All Guyanese should bol­ster Pres­i­dent Ali’s ef­forts in this re­gard. If Pres­i­dent Maduro re­sponds in like man­ner, Cari­com’s ef­forts will have the re­ward of def­er­ence to not on­ly re­gion­al but in­ter­na­tion­al norms of peace and se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

Mean­while, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, re­vealed that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley par­tic­i­pat­ed in bro­ker­ing the up­com­ing dis­cus­sion.

“Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley was very much present at Fri­day’s Emer­gency Meet­ing of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment, and he par­tic­i­pat­ed ac­tive­ly and sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the dis­cus­sions that re­sult­ed in the di­a­logue card­ed for Thurs­day in St Vin­cent,” stat­ed Browne.

On Sun­day, the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress crit­i­cised Row­ley for fail­ing to fa­cil­i­tate me­di­a­tion talks be­tween the Guyanese and Venezue­lan lead­ers. The par­ty had called on him to do so but he lat­er told the Op­po­si­tion to “shut up”, not­ing Ali is not in­ter­est­ed in me­di­a­tion but hav­ing the mat­ter dealt with via the ICJ

The UNC al­so praised the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines PM for the role he has played in seek­ing to main­tain peace in the re­gion.