UN takes no immediate action at emergency meeting on Guyana-Venezuela dispute over oil-rich region

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council took no immediate action at a closed emergency meeting late Friday requested by Guyana after Venezuela’s referendum claiming the vast oil- and mineral-rich Essequibo region that makes up a large part of its neighbor.

But diplomats said the widespread view of the 15 council members was that the international law must be respected, including the U.N. Charter’s requirement that all member nations respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every other nation — and for the parties to respect the International Court of Justice’s orders and its role as an arbiter.

A possible press statement was circulated to council members and some said they needed to check with capitals, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations were private.

At the start of Friday’s meeting, the diplomats said, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the council on the dispute.

In a letter to the Security Council president requesting the emergency meeting, Guyana Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd accused Venezuela of violating the U.N. Charter by attempting to take its territory.

The letter recounted the arbitration between then-British Guiana and Venezuela in 1899 and the formal demarcation of their border in a 1905 agreement. For over 60 years, he said, Venezuela accepted the boundary, but in 1962 it challenged the 1899 arbitration that set the border.

The diplomatic fight over the Essequibo region has flared since then, but it intensified in 2015 after ExxonMobil announced it had found vast amounts of oil off its coast.

The dispute escalated as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro…