Venezuela president seeks UN support in settling Essequibo dispute with Guyana

President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela on Tuesday asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help settle the long-standing dispute with Guyana over Caracas' claim to the Essequibo Guyana region using a 1966 Geneva Agreement.

The Venezuelan leader said he briefed Ban about the dispute, dating back to an 1835 arbitration involving the United States representing Venezuela when Guyana was a British colony and London wouldn't speak with Caracas leaders. Venezuela has since declared that decision "null and void."

Maduro said the more recent "Geneva Agreement is very important because it is signed under the auspices of the United Nations." He insisted on pursuing a "diplomacy of peace" to "overcome these provocations that are currently being performed and the aggressions by the current president" of Guyana, David Granger. "I am certain that in the end he will rectify and stop damaging even further these relations."

Maduro, who spoke to reporters here after his meeting with the UN chief, said that he wanted the secretary-general to use his good offices in the dispute, in which Caracas claims more than half of Guyana from Venezuela's eastern border to the Essequibo River, a territory known as Guyana Essequibo. It is mostly jungle but believed to have sought-after minerals and possibly petroleum.