GEORGETOWN: World leaders called for calm on Thursday as Venezuela decried joint US-Guyana military exercises as a "provocation" and vowed to push ahead with the "recovery" of an oil-rich region both neighbours claim as their own.
The UN Security Council called an urgent meeting for Friday on the fast-escalating row that Guyana said "threatens international peace and security."
Fears of the conflict blowing up have deepened after Venezuelan government held a controversial referendum on Sunday on the fate of the Essequibo region.
Addressing the recent flare-up, Guyanese Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo said Venezuela "is not going to succeed, now or ever" at taking the Essequibo region.
"Every single movement that Venezuelans make, particularly in the proximity of our borders, is tracked, every single one of them." The United States, through National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, urged the sides to find a diplomatic solution to the territorial dispute, saying "we don't want to see this come to blows."
But Washington provoked an angry response from Caracas by announcing via the embassy in Georgetown it would hold joint "flight operations within Guyana" as part of "routine engagement and operations to enhance security partnership" with its ally.
"This unfortunate provocation by the United States in favour... of ExxonMobil in Guyana is another step in the wrong direction," Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on X.
Essequibo has been administered by Guyana for more than a century and is the subject of border litigation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague
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In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva voiced "growing concern" about the tensions on his country's northern border. Lula told a summit of the Mercosur South American bloc: "If there's one thing we don't want here in South America, it's war."
The regional group, composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, later issued a statement urging Georgetown and Caracas to seek a peaceful solution and warning against "unilateral actions." It was also signed by Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron also warned Venezuela on Thursday not to take "unilateral action" in the dispute. Guyana is an English-speaking former colony of Britain and the Netherlands.
Cameron spoke in Washington after a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who in a phone call with Guyana's President Irfaan Ali on Wednesday reaffirmed the United States' "unwavering support for Guyana's sovereignty."
The long-running dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered oil there in 2015, and Caracas called a referendum after Guyana started auctioning off oil blocks in August. — AFP
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