REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has gone to New York to meet with UN chief Ban Ki-moon over his country's escalating border dispute with Guyana, his foreign minister said late Monday.

Maduro will "defend the rights of Venezuela" and "defend the country from aggression by the new government of Guyana," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said.

A border dispute stretching back decades between the two south American neighbors has escalated in recent months, after Caracas made a new claim over coastal waters where Exxon Mobil recently announced an important oil find.

Caracas issued a decree May 27 laying claim to waters off the Essequibo, a disputed territory that borders Venezuela and encompasses more than half of Guyana.

The Venezuelan action came less than a month after Exxon Mobil said it had made a "significant" discovery in an offshore concession granted by Guyana.

Last week, Guyana's President David Granger warned that Venezuela's border claim was a threat to his small country's survival.

"This is too much to bear for a country with fewer than a million people," he said while visiting Washington.

Maduro has blamed American interests including the Exxon Mobil oil company for exacerbating the dispute. He recently recalled Venezuela's ambassador to Guyana.

Guyana, a former British colony, maintains that the land boundary between it and Venezuela was settled in 1899 by a court of arbitration.

But Venezuela has never recognized the line, and the dispute has simmered ever since, extending in recent years to maritime rights off the disputed area.

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