Chancellor Gil: The Geneva Agreement buried the terrible rigged arbitration award of 1899

Published at: 19/02/2026 02:32 PM

The People's Power Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yván Gil, stressed this Thursday that the 1966 Geneva Agreement rescinded the arbitral award of 1899, and became the only valid instrument for resolving the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana.

During his speech at the Forum “60 Years of the Geneva Agreement : Validity, Legality and Historical Position of Venezuela”, held at the Casa Amarilla Antonio José de Sucre, in Caracas, Gil reaffirmed the historic position of the Bolivarian nation in defense of its sovereignty and territory.

He highlighted the validity, legality and legitimacy of the Geneva Agreement of 1966. “More than a historic position, we are talking about a position of attachment to international law, attachment to legality, adherence to the United Nations charter, attachment to the values that govern coexistence between nations,” he said.

Gil pointed out that Venezuela has solid arguments and “one of them is that the Geneva Agreement, 60 years ago, buried, declared null and void the terrible rigged arbitral award of 1899, which sought to steal the territory of Guiana Essequiba at the time by the United Kingdom of Great Britain.”

He ratified that the Geneva Agreement “opened the doors to direct negotiation between the parties, a satisfactory negotiation, that the result was satisfactory for both parties (...) For these 60 years, Venezuela has been promoting the peaceful resolution of the controversy through direct dialogue and that is what it is reaffirming.”

On the other hand, he said that the forum confirmed that the unilateral route chosen by the Government of Guyana before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “is an unfeasible route, it is an illegal route, it is an illegitimate route, a route that does not represent the spirit of the Geneva Agreement signed between the parties”.

Mazo News Team/MPPRE