Britain's Royal Navy is sending a warship to Guyana as tension between the South American country and neighboring Venezuela over a long-simmering territorial dispute recently flared again.

In a brief statement on Sunday, Britain's Ministry of Defense said: "HMS Trent will visit regional ally and Commonwealth partner Guyana later this month as part of a series of engagements in the region during her Atlantic patrol task deployment."

The vessel is in Barbados over Christmas and will then head to waters off the mainland of Guyana later this month, according to reports.

The ship is not expected to dock in Georgetown, its capital, because the port is too shallow, the BBC said.

The first to report on the deployment, the broadcaster said it was intended as "a show of diplomatic and military support for the former British colony."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had renewed his country's century-old claim to Guyana's oil-rich Essequibo region.

Caracas has long claimed Essequibo, which makes up about two-thirds of Guyana's territory, and has ratcheted up its rhetoric over it in recent months.

It followed Guyana, which has governed the area for more than 100 years, issuing licenses for oil companies to operate there.

The flare-up has raised fears in the region of a potential conflict over the remote area of 160,000 square kilometers.

A United Kingdom foreign minister, David Rutley, visited Guyana earlier this month and reiterated sovereign borders "must be respected" and that London would work internationally "to ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld."

Maduro's government held a controversial referendum on 3 December in which 95 percent of voters, according to officials in the hard-line leftist government, supported declaring Venezuela the rightful owner of Essequibo.

He has since started legal maneuvers to create a Venezuelan province in Essequibo and ordered the state oil company to issue licenses for extracting crude in the region.

Guyana's President Irfaan Ali has branded the moves as a "grave threat to international peace and security."                                       

 WITH AFP