PPP calls US congresswoman’s rebuke of Venezuela’s interim President “forceful”

Guyana’s ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) on Tuesday described as “forceful” United States’ (US) Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s statement in support of Guyana against Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez’s continued threats to this country’s territorial sovereignty.

Ms Salazar, who is also Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs, said on X that the Venezuelan leader believed she could trick US President Donald Trump in the same manner that she and now ousted President Nicolás Maduro “tricked and destroyed” Venezuela.”Delcy should stop threatening Guyana and start learning from it,” the American lawmaker also said.

The Guyana government did not immediately react to the congresswoman’s X post.

Ms Salazar’s comments came one day after Ms Rodriguez told the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) oral hearings on the merits of Guyana’s case that her country would not respect that United Nations highest court one way or the other on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award on the land boundary with Guyana.

She maintained that the 1966 Geneva Agreement between Venezuela and the United Kingdom shortly before Guyana was granted independence was the only valid treaty to settle the border controversy bilaterally and warned that a ruling on the validity or invalidity of the boundary award would not ease tensions between the two South American nations.

“No judgment by this court on the territorial controversy will provide a definitive solution acceptable both parties. On the contrary, it will exacerbate the differences between the parties, and will lead the parties to entrench themselves in their respective positions, distancing them from the practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable settlement to which they committed in 1966 by signing the Geneva agreement,” the Venezuelan President said on Monday.