The Hague, Netherlands
Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez informed journalists Monday that her nation had no plans to change into the 51st US state after President Donald Trump stated he was “seriously considering” the transfer.
Rodríguez was talking on the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the ultimate day of hearings in a dispute between her nation and neighboring Guyana over the huge mineral- and oil-rich Essequibo area.
“We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history,” stated Rodríguez, who assumed energy in January following a U.S. navy operation that ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is “not a colony, but a free country,” she added.
Speaking to Fox News earlier on Monday, Trump stated he was “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state,” in response to a publish by Fox News’ co-anchor John Roberts on social media.
The actual context of Trump’s comment stays unclear. The White House didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the matter.
Trump has made comparable feedback about Canada.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly later declined to touch upon Trump’s plans in an interview of her personal with Roberts on Fox News. Kelly stated the president is “famous for never accepting the status quo,” and praised Rodríguez for “working incredibly cooperatively” with the U.S.
Rodríguez went on to say that Venezuelan and US officers have been in contact and are engaged on “cooperation and understanding.”
Before 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 at the moment producing a mean 900,000 barrels a day.
That output is near Venezuela’s day by day manufacturing of about 1 million barrels a day and has remodeled one of many smallest nations in South America into a major power producer.
Venezuela has thought of Essequibo its personal because the Spanish colonial interval, when the jungle area fell inside its boundaries. But an 1899 choice by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States 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 major oil discovery off the Essequibo coast, Guyana’s authorities went to the International Court of Justice and requested judges to uphold the 1899 ruling.
Tensions between the nations additional flared in 2023, when Rodríguez’s predecessor, Maduro, threatened to annex the area by pressure after holding a referendum asking voters if Essequibo must be changed into a Venezuelan state. Maduro was captured Jan. 3 throughout a US navy operation in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and taken to New York to face drug trafficking prices. He has pleaded not responsible.
Rodríguez didn’t handle the referendum in her remarks, however she informed the court docket that the 1966 settlement is designed to permit negotiations between Venezuela and Guyana to resolve the territorial dispute. And she accused Guyana’s authorities of undermining the settlement with the “opportunistic” choice to ask the court docket to deal with the dispute.
“At a time when the mechanisms established in the Geneva agreement were still fully in force, Guyana unilaterally chose to shift the dispute from the negotiating arena to a judicial resolution,” she stated. “This change was not accidental; it coincided with the discovery in 2015 of the oil field that would become world-renowned.”
When hearings opened final week, Guyana’s international minister, Hugh Hilton Todd, informed the panel of worldwide judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the very beginning.” He stated that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake.
The court docket is more likely to take months to challenge 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.