THE presidents of Venezuela and Guyana are set to meet later this week in a bid to ease the border dispute between the two nations, it was announced on Saturday.

Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and Guyana’s Mohamed Irfaan Ali have agreed to meet on Thursday, according to a letter from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Ralph Gonsalves, who serves as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres.

Tensions have been mounting in recent weeks between Venezuela and Guyana over a long-running border dispute in Esequibo, an oil and gas-rich area in Guyana.

A spokesperson for Venezuela’s government said that the meeting “is in order to preserve our aspiration to maintain Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”

The Office of the President of Guyana confirmed that Mr Ali had agreed to the meeting, but said “Guyana’s land boundary is not up for discussion.”

Last Sunday, voters in Venezuela rejected the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over the area and backed the creation of a new Venezuelan state.

Venezuela says that it was the victim of a land theft conspiracy in 1899, when Guyana was a British colony and arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States decided the boundary.