Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, held dis­cus­sions ear­li­er to­day with Venezue­lan am­bas­sador, Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero. The meet­ing was deemed a cour­tesy call by the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment, "Both sides al­so dis­cussed mat­ters of mu­tu­al in­ter­est and con­cern, in­clu­sive of re­cent events with

Min­is­ter Sobers re­it­er­at­ing the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pre­vi­ous re­quest for in­for­ma­tion from the Gov­ern­ment of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela. Aris­ing out of the dis­cus­sions, it was agreed that in the spir­it of con­struc­tive di­a­logue, open diplo­mat­ic chan­nels would be main­tained with a view to en­sur­ing that the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion is fair, trans­par­ent and con­sis­tent."

The meet­ing comes as ten­sions be­tween T&T and Venezuela es­ca­lat­ed last week af­ter Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo al­leged on his pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, that a Trinida­di­an by the name of “Guis Kendell Jerome” - had been cap­tured en route to Venezuela with a group la­belled “ter­ror­ists” in an at­tempt to desta­bilise their gov­ern­ment.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials in this coun­try have since con­firmed that the per­son named by Ca­bel­lo had not ap­peared in T&T’s crim­i­nal data­base.

Yes­ter­day, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves has urged both Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela to ex­er­cise re­straint and re­solve their dif­fer­ences peace­ful­ly and in line with in­ter­na­tion­al law.