Venezuela has condemned an exercise in which two United States Navy jets overflew Guyana on Thursday.
“The Bolivarian National Armed Forces strongly reject these repeated provocations by the Southern Command, sponsored by the government of Guyana, which has assumed the role of a new North American colony,” Venezuela’s Vladimir Padrino said on X, formerly Twitter.
The United States Embassy in Guyana said the overfly of the two F/A-18F Super Hornets embarked on USS George Washington, occurred with the collaboration and approval of the Guyana government.
According to an Embassy statement, it was a friendly exercise with the Guyana Defence Force.
“The exercise builds upon our routine security cooperation and expanding bilateral defense partnership with Guyana,” the embassy said.
The embassy disclosed that the USS George Washington and Carrier Strike Group Ten are in the region as part of a two-month transit to the Pacific.
“During its transit, USS George Washington will conduct exercises and exchanges with longstanding defense partners to increase interoperability, build capacity, and support hemispheric security and stability,’ it noted.
However, Venezuela denounced the U.S. jet flyovers in Guyana, declaring that it violated the 2023 Argyle Declaration by Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro.
The two men met in Saint Vincent in December last year, and issued an 11-point declaration.
The declaration included a commitment to pursuing good neighborliness, peaceful coexistence, and the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Venezuela and Guyana have a longstanding border issue, stemming from Caracas’ claim to over two-thirds of its neighbour’s territory in the resource-rich Essequibo region.
The matter is currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
