This coun­try has bro­kered an agree­ment for the for­eign af­fairs min­is­ters of Venezuela and Guyana to meet and swift­ly re­solve a dis­pute over the re­cent de­ten­tion of two Guyanese fish­ing ves­sels and their crews.

T&T stepped in on Cari­com’s be­half yes­ter­day when For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne held frank dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador the this coun­try, Car­los Pérez Sil­va, on the in­ci­dent, the lat­est dis­play of height­en­ing bor­der ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and Guyana.

Guyana re­cent­ly de­ployed troops to safe­guard against pos­si­ble Venezue­lan in­fringe­ment of its bor­ders. At is­sue are oil-rich mar­itime ar­eas near where Exxon­Mo­bil made ma­jor oil finds in re­cent years.

Two Guyanese reg­is­tered fish­ing ves­sels—the La­dy Nay­era and the Sea Wolf—were re­cent­ly in­ter­cept­ed by a Venezue­lan naval ves­sel, Com­man­dante Hugo Chavez GC 24. The cap­tains of the two fish­ing ves­sels were in­struct­ed to chart a course to Port Guiria where they have been de­tained.

Guyana claimed the boats were in op­er­at­ing off the coast of Wai­ni Point with­in the coun­try’s Ex­clu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zone, some­thing Venezuela de­nied yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion Hugh Todd has is­sued a protest note con­demn­ing the de­ten­tion of the cap­tains and crews of fish­ing ves­sels and is call­ing for their im­me­di­ate re­lease.

Venezuela’s for­eign min­istry re­port­ed­ly said the in­ci­dent oc­curred in their wa­ters and ac­cused Guyana of “con­spir­ing” with Exxon­Mo­bil and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies to con­trol Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry.

T&T For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter in­vit­ed Pérez Sil­va to meet giv­en T&T’s chair­man­ship of Cari­com. Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the min­istry, Browne ex­pressed deep con­cern on the mat­ter and urged an im­me­di­ate and peace­ful res­o­lu­tion. The Venezue­lan am­bas­sador gave an un­der­tak­ing that his Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs will meet vir­tu­al­ly with his Guyanese coun­ter­part as soon as pos­si­ble in an at­tempt to swift­ly re­solve the is­sue.

T&T has backed Guyana in the is­sue of Venezue­lan’s bor­ders dis­pute with Guyana. Venezuela’s Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro re­cent­ly de­clared that he would re­con­quer the dis­put­ed Es­se­qui­bo re­gion which is at the cen­tre of a decades-old dis­pute be­tween the two coun­tries. That mat­ter will be dealt with by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

This coun­try its own is­sues with Venezuela in the last year. To date there hass been no word from Venezuela about grant­i­ng a fol­low-up vis­it to the oil tanker Nabari­ma in the Gulf of Paria with 1.3 mil­lion bar­rels of crude of board.

T&T asked for an in­spec­tion vis­it of the ves­sel last year af­ter con­cerns were raised that it was in dan­ger of sink­ing. Venezuela grant­ed a T&T crew of ex­perts a vis­it in No­vem­ber but the team rec­om­mend­ed a fol­low-up in­spec­tion vis­it. There was no word up to yes­ter­day on whether a fol­low up vis­it will be al­lowed.