A NAVAL stand-off looms in the Caribbean as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered a show of force to meet a British warship headed for the area.

Mr Maduro said on Thursday that 6,000 troops would take part in exercises close to the Guyanese border, where tensions have risen following a Venezuelan referendum asserting sovereignty over the disputed Essequibo region.

Mr Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali agreed on December 14 not to use force to resolve the dispute, but Venezuela says Britain’s despatch of the HMS Trent patrol ship to take part in naval exercises with Guyana breaches the agreement.

A British warship in Caribbean waters “is an unacceptable threat to any sovereign country in Latin America,” Mr Maduro warned.

“We believe in diplomacy, in dialogue and in peace, but no-one is going to threaten Venezuela.”

Guyana was a British colony until 1966 and was named by former defence secretary Gavin Williamson in 2019 as a potential site for a new Caribbean military base, part of a bid to expand Nato’s reach in South America following Colombia’s appointment as a “global partner” of the US-led alliance.

The Essequibo region has been disputed for over a century, but Guyana’s award of a licence to drill for oil in disputed waters to US firm Exxon-Mobil in 2015 has reignited the quarrel.

On December 3, Venezuela held a referendum in which over 90 per cent of voters backed establishing Essequibo as a new Venezuelan state, but since the region is administered by Guyana its own residents did not vote.