Suriname, Guyana preparing for border meeting

Last Updated on Sunday, 30 November 2025, 13:30 by Writer

Suriname and Guyana are forging ahead with preparations for a meeting of their Joint Border Commission in December, according to top officials of both countries.

“That is what we are striving to. Hopefully, the seventh border commission will be able to meet before the end of this year,” Suriname’s outgoing Ambassador to Guyana, Liselle Blankendal told reporters.

She said the chair of the Suriname border commission had begun engaging Guyanese officials to explore when that meeting could be held.

President Irfaan Ali and Suriname’s recently-elected President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons on September 13 at their first meeting in Nickerie, Suriname agreed that the co-chairs of the Commission would meet “as soon as possible” and convene the border commission meeting before the end of 2025.

Guyana’s foreign affairs minister Hugh Todd told Demerara Waves Online News that he and his Surinamese counterpart are scheduled to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Council of Foreign Ministers (COFCOR) to be held in December in Georgetown. Down for discussions are several matters including the Strategic Dialogue Cooperation Platform now that a new government is in office in Suriname.

He said the working groups have been engaging in several areas including the Corentyne River Bridge, agriculture, border commission and fishing licences. “We’re hoping to get everything together and to have the conversation going by the end of the year all things being equal otherwise we will have to start in the first quarter of the new year but we are trying to see how we can coordinate on our side and on their side as well,” he said.

Ms Blankendal, a career diplomat, said already relevant historical documents had been reviewed by the border commission and a report submitted to both foreign ministers. She explained that the proposal was for the chairs of both border commissions to meet first before the joint commission meeting.

Asked whether the Suriname-Guyana Joint Border Commission had anything to do with the New River Triangle, a 6,000 square mile (15,600 square kilometer) area in the south east of Guyana, the Surinamese envoy said “when we talk about the border commission it means everything around that part.” “Our focus is to see how we can move the way forward,” she said.