Territorial water dispute simmering between U.S., Venezuela

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A dispute is brewing between Caracas and Washington over the status of the Gulf of Venezuela, where Venezuelan warplanes buzzed a U.S. Coast Guard vessel on October 21, officials said on Wednesday.

Venezuela says that the body of water, a large inlet from the Caribbean, has always had the status of "internal waters," subject to Venezuelan sovereignty much as land would be.

But a U.S. official said Washington first learned of the Venezuelan claim in the last few weeks and did not think it had any validity.

"Our understanding is they claim that the Gulf of Venezuela is internal waters. This is the first time we have heard of it and the United States does not recognize that," said the official, who asked not be named.

The official said that such a claim would need to have a historical basis but that no relevant Venezuelan laws or decrees make any reference to a special status for the gulf.

"To be 'historic waters' there has to be clear publication of your claim and it has to be acceptable to the international community over a period of time," he said.

Venezuela passed a maritime law in 1956, and a presidential decree in 1968 established a straight baseline along the eastern coast of the country. But neither included a claim to the Gulf of Venezuela in the west, he added.

A Venezuelan embassy official disputed that account. "Venezuela says it (the vessel) was in internal waters, very Venezuelan waters. That is an old position," he said.

He noted that his country did, however, have a dispute with neighboring Colombia, which holds the northwestern stretch of the coast and claims a share of the waters.

In the October 21 incident, a Venezuelan navy patrol detected the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Reliance in the gulf. The U.S. official said Venezuelan F-16s then buzzed it -- in other words flew over it at low altitude.

The Reliance was on a counternarcotics mission, seeking small vessels which might be taking drugs from Colombia or Venezuela out into the Caribbean.

Caracas complained to the United States and then rejected the U.S. reply to its complaint, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel had breakfast in Caracas on Wednesday with U.S. ambassador, Donna Hrinak, and later told reporters that everything had been clarified and the incident was a closed chapter. He did not elaborate.

But the incident adds to a series of public disagreements between the United States and the government of populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez upset the United States in August by visiting Iraq for OPEC, the Organization of Petrol Exporting Counties. Last month he hosted Cuban President Fidel Castro on a state visit.

The Chavez government has also revived an ancient territorial dispute with its eastern neighbor Guyana. It claims 75 percent of the small former British colony.

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