The Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela on Thurs­day called on Guyanese au­thor­i­ties to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion for the with­draw­al of the HMS Trent, a ves­sel from the British Navy, and to re­frain from con­tin­u­ing to in­volve mil­i­tary pow­ers in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­tro­ver­sy.

Venezuela says it re­jects the ar­rival of the HMS Trent to the coasts of Guyana, which it says ‘be­comes an act of hos­tile provo­ca­tion and a vi­o­la­tion of the re­cent Ar­gyle De­c­la­ra­tion.’

Last week it was re­port­ed that the UK was send­ing the Roy­al Navy Pa­trol Ship to Guyana in a show of sup­port for the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) mem­ber state.

This fol­lows the re­cent peace talks in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines where a Joint De­c­la­ra­tion of Ar­gyle for Di­a­logue and Peace be­tween Guyana and Venezuela was cre­at­ed, aimed at quelling ten­sions.

“HMS Trent will vis­it re­gion­al al­ly and Com­mon­wealth part­ner Guyana lat­er this month as part of a se­ries of en­gage­ments in the re­gion dur­ing her At­lantic pa­trol task de­ploy­ment,” a Min­istry of De­fence spokesper­son said.

Venezuela in a state­ment says the pres­ence of the mil­i­tary ves­sel is ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous.

The state­ment said: “It al­so warns the mem­bers of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) and the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) that these ac­tions are con­trary to the spir­it of peace and un­der­stand­ing with which Venezuela at­tend­ed the De­cem­ber 14 meet­ing in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, to which we must re­turn im­me­di­ate­ly and con­tin­ue on the path of di­rect di­a­logue be­tween the par­ties.”