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GEORGETOWN, Sept 18 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States and Guyana will begin joint maritime patrols aimed at drug interdiction near the South American country\u2019s disputed border with crisis-stricken Venezuela, the U.S. secretary of state and Guyana\u2019s new president said on Friday.<\/p>\n
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The agreement comes as U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp , as part of a consortium with Hess Corp and China\u2019s CNOOC Ltd, ramps up crude output from Guyana\u2019s massive offshore Stabroek block, a large portion of which is in waters claimed by Venezuela.<\/p>\n
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\u201cGreater security, greater capacity to understand your border space, what\u2019s happening inside your Exclusive Economic Zone \u2013 those are all things that give Guyana sovereignty,\u201d U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a joint appearance with newly-installed Guyanese President Irfaan Ali.<\/p>\n
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Pompeo is using his four-nation South America tour to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen a six-year economic collapse and has been indicted in the United States on narcoterrorism charges, to resign.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe know that the Maduro regime has decimated the people of Venezuela and that Maduro himself is an indicted narcotics trafficker. That means he has to leave,\u201d Pompeo told reporters during his appearance in Georgetown with Ali.<\/p>\n
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Venezuela\u2019s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Maduro, who accuses the United States of seeking to provoke a coup and seize control of the OPEC nation\u2019s vast oil reserves, remains in power despite the 18-month campaign of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure led by Washington.<\/p>\n
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The latest salvo in a century-long border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela that is currently being evaluated at the International Court of Justice came in late 2018, when Venezuela\u2019s navy intercepted a vessel conducting a seismic survey on Exxon\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n
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A series of offshore oil discoveries in recent years have given Guyana, which has no history of oil production, the potential to become one of Latin America\u2019s largest producers.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have had various difficulties and I think we welcome any help that would enhance our security, that would enhance our ability to protect our borders,\u201d Ali said. (Reporting by Neil Marks in Georgetown; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GEORGETOWN, Sept 18 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States and Guyana will begin joint maritime patrols aimed at drug interdiction near the South American country\u2019s disputed border with crisis-stricken Venezuela, the U.S. secretary of state and Guyana\u2019s new president said on Friday. The agreement comes as U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp , as part of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[7998,4860,1809,1663,3297,41,11393,112],"class_list":["post-17827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-border","tag-disputed","tag-guyana","tag-joint","tag-launch","tag-maritime","tag-patrols","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/17828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}