Venezuela launches military drills after UK sends warship to Guyana

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has ordered more than 5,600 military personnel to participate in a "defensive" exercise near the border with Guyana, in response to Britain sending a warship to the area.

Maduro said on Thursday he was launching "a joint action of a defensive nature in response to the provocation and threat of the United Kingdom against peace and the sovereignty of our country."

Britain said on Sunday it would divert the patrol vessel HMS Trent to Guyana, a former British colony, amid the South American country's simmering territorial dispute with neighbouring Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region.

A Guyana Foreign Ministry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AFP news agency that the ship was due to arrive on Friday and would be in its territory for "less than a week" for open sea defence exercises.

The ship will not dock in Georgetown.

The television broadcast accompanying Maduro's announcement showed fighter jets participating in the Venezuelan exercise, as well as ships and ocean patrol vessels.

The Venezuelan government earlier asked Guyana, in a statement, "to take immediate action for the withdrawal of the HMS Trent, and to refrain from involving military powers in the territorial controversy."

Guyana's Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, said the country was not doing anything to threaten Venezuela.

"A lot of these measures were long-planned, and they are routine, and they are part of our building a defensive capability," he told a press conference.

"We don't plan on invading Venezuela. President Maduro knows this and he need not have any worry about that."

In a statement, Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said the country "reserves all actions, within the framework of the Constitution and International Law, to defend its maritime and territorial integrity."

'We are warriors'

Maduro says that Essequibo — which makes up about two-thirds of Guyana's territory — is actually Venezuelan land, a decades-old contention that has flared since massive oil deposits were found in its waters.

The rising tensions have raised fears in the region of a potential conflict over the remote area of 160,000 square kilometres.

The South American neighbours agreed earlier this month not to resort to force to settle the dispute during a meeting between Maduro and Guyana's President Irfaan Ali.

"We believe in diplomacy, in dialogue, in peace," said Maduro.

"But no one should threaten Venezuela, no one should mess with Venezuela. We are a people of peace, but we are warriors, and this threat is unacceptable for any sovereign country," he said.

"The threat of the decadent, rotten, ex-empire of the United Kingdom is unacceptable."

A UK Foreign Minister, David Rutley, visited Guyana earlier this month and reiterated sovereign borders "must be respected" and that London would work internationally "to ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld."

Maduro's government held a controversial referendum on December 3 in which 95 percent of voters, according to officials in the hardline leftist government, supported declaring Venezuela the rightful owner of Essequibo.

He has since started legal manoeuvres to create a Venezuelan province in Essequibo and ordered the state oil company to issue licenses for extracting crude in the region.

Guyana's Ali has branded the moves a "grave threat to international peace and security."