Guyana’s President, Dr Irfaan Ali said that Guyana welcomes the opportunity to further strengthen its relationship with the United States as a strategic partner, particularly during its period of growth.
The Head of State, during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC, on Monday, highlighted the countries’ shared values and their quests to strengthen the region.
“We look forward to discussing how jointly we can continue to work on the issues of food security, climate, financing, working in the region in terms of debt crisis facing CARICOM, but more importantly, finding a balanced development strategy, and in doing so, staying true to the value system, principles that both of us believe so strongly in—that is a democratic society where transparency, accountability, and strong governance support for the development of Guyana.”
The President noted that the discussions this week are a continuation of the dialogue between the two countries, which was initiated during June’s Ninth Summit of the Americas, in which critical issues for CARICOM as a region were identified, which includes food security, energy security, financing, and the issue of climate change.
He reminded that Guyana is already providing leadership, including on issues of the environment, while pursuing the country’s development agenda.
“We are pursuing an energy path that seeks to balance our newfound natural resource of oil and gas, but we are not doing that at the detriment of our credentials on environment and climate change. As you rightfully pointed out, our forests stores 19.5 kilotons of carbon. We are a net zero country…”
GUYANA IS A STRATEGIC PARTNER
In his remarks, the US Secretary of State said that Guyana has been a very strong partner for the United States and is in many ways a global leader. The two countries, he added, will continue to advance discussions and collaboration in areas for cooperation.
“We’re working together in our region and beyond to try to find solutions to urgent challenges, to include climate, to include food security, energy security. We’re working on issues together, and I think coming out of the Summit of the Americas in particular, there is a lot more energy in those efforts, including some things that we’re working on very actively right now that I know we’ll be sharing in the weeks ahead.”
The United States, he emphasised, is “very eager to continue to deepen and strengthen the partnership,” which will also redound to the benefit of the region given the fact that Georgetown, the country’s capital, is also the seat of CARICOM.
“This for us is a very important and vital institution, one with which President Biden, Vice President Harris had, I think, a very significant and important engagement at the Summit of the Americas. So I look forward to continuing the conversations that we all started there and to deepening the work that we’ve already begun between our countries.”
President Ali was accompanied by Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo; the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hugh Todd; Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud and Ambassador of Guyana to the United States of America, Samuel Hinds.
US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch and other US government representatives also attended the meeting.
