GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana's government says it will move ahead with plans to drill for oil in a disputed border zone despite opposition from Venezuela's congress.
The foreign ministry said Friday it won't surrender any sovereign rights after learning that the energy committee of the opposition-dominated Venezuelan congress approved a resolution this month rejecting Guyana's planned development of oil fields because they are allegedly in waters claimed by both countries. Exxon's 2015 discovery of a world-class oil field in the area reignited a decades-old border dispute between the two South American nations.
Guyana said the Venezuelan resolution undermines efforts by both countries to resolve the flap. The United Nations will send the matter to its World Court by year's end if the two countries don't resolve their dispute before that.