THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez advised journalists Monday that her nation had no plans to turn out to be the 51st U.S. state after President Donald Trump stated he was “severely contemplating” the transfer.
Rodríguez was talking on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice in The Hague on the ultimate day of hearings in a dispute between her nation and neighboring Guyana over the large mineral- and oil-rich Essequibo area.
“We’ll proceed to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our historical past,” stated Rodríguez, who assumed energy in January following a U.S. army operation that ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is “not a colony, however a free nation,” she added.
Chatting with Fox Information earlier on Monday, Trump stated he was “severely contemplating making Venezuela the 51st US state,” in keeping with a submit by Fox Information’ co-anchor John Roberts on social media. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the matter.
Trump has made related feedback about Canada.
White Home spokesperson Anna Kelly later declined to touch upon Trump’s plans in an interview of her personal with Roberts on Fox Information. Kelly stated the president is “well-known for by no means accepting the established order,” and praised Rodriguez for “working extremely cooperatively” with the U.S.
Rodríguez went on to say that Venezuelan and U.S. officers have been in contact and are engaged on “cooperation and understanding.”
Earlier than addressing Trump’s feedback, Rodríguez defended her country’s declare to Essequibo on the United Nations’ highest court docket, telling judges that political negotiations – not a judicial ruling – will resolve the century-old territorial dispute.
The 62,000-square-mile territory, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana, is wealthy in gold, diamonds, timber and different pure sources. It additionally sits close to large offshore oil deposits presently producing a mean 900,000 barrels a day.
That output is near Venezuela’s every day manufacturing of about 1 million barrels a day and has reworked one of many smallest international locations in South America into a big vitality producer.
Venezuela has thought of Essequibo its personal because the Spanish colonial interval, when the jungle area fell inside its boundaries. However an 1899 resolution by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the USA drew the border alongside the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana.
Venezuela has argued {that a} 1966 settlement sealed in Geneva to resolve the dispute successfully nullified the Nineteenth-century arbitration. In 2018, nevertheless, three years after ExxonMobil introduced a big oil discovery off the Essequibo coast, Guyana’s authorities went to the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice and requested judges to uphold the 1899 ruling.
Tensions between the international locations additional flared in 2023, when Rodríguez’s predecessor, Maduro, threatened to annex the area by pressure after holding a referendum asking voters if Essequibo ought to be become a Venezuelan state. Maduro was captured Jan. 3 throughout a U.S. army operation in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and taken to New York to face drug trafficking fees. He has pleaded not responsible.
Rodríguez didn’t tackle the referendum in her remarks, however she advised the court docket that the 1966 settlement is designed to permit negotiations between Venezuela and Guyana to resolve the territorial dispute. And he or she accused Guyana’s authorities of undermining the settlement with the “opportunistic” resolution to ask the court docket to handle the dispute.
“At a time when the mechanisms established within the Geneva settlement had been nonetheless absolutely in pressure, Guyana unilaterally selected to shift the dispute from the negotiating enviornment to a judicial decision,” she stated. “This variation was not unintended; it coincided with the invention in 2015 of the oil discipline that may turn out to be world-renowned.”
When hearings opened final week, Guyana’s overseas minister, Hugh Hilton Todd, advised the panel of worldwide judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the very starting.” He stated that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake.
The court docket is prone to take months to subject a remaining and legally binding ruling within the case.
Venezuela has warned that its participation within the hearings doesn’t imply both consent to, or recognition of, the court docket’s jurisdiction.
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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico Metropolis.
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