Quote:A discovery of oil in disputed territory set off a diplomatic dispute between Venezuela and Guyana this week.

Delcy Rodriguez, the Venezuelan minister for foreign affairs, considers a statement by the new Guyanese government over a territorial dispute a “provocation” and called on her counterpart to participate in dialogue with Venezuela to resolve the dispute.

“It is unacceptable that the new government of Guyana take this position with a territory that is under dispute, and who has also expressly recognized that this area of the sea is subject to an amicable settlement of territorial claims, as envisaged in the Geneva Agreement,” Rodriguez said in a statement Tuesday.

On Monday, Guyana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Venezuela a "threat to regional peace and security" over a recent decree that reasserted Venezuela's right to an area of the sea that Guyana claims as theirs. The border and maritime dispute is over a century old, with Venezuela laying claim to the territory west of the Essequibo river, having been taken from Venezuela in 1899.