“We seek peace with all our neighbours” – President Ali in inauguration address

Newly re-elected President Dr Irfaan Ali has reaffirmed his Government’s commitment to peace and security in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.

Speaking at his inauguration ceremony on Sunday, where he was sworn in as Guyana Ninth Executive President for a second term, Dr Ali pledged to deepen economic ties with neighbouring countries, expanding trade, investment, infrastructure, and knowledge exchange.
This, he noted, will ensure that growth in Guyana strengthens the wider LAC community, and in turn, prosperity across the region creates new opportunities for Guyanese.
Turning his attention to more pressing matters, President Ali reaffirmed, “We seek peace with all our neighbours and defend our sovereignty with a quiet confidence in the law and a steady strength of unity. Just as efficiency, integrity, and service must define how government works at home, so must collaboration and cooperation define how we engage abroad.”
According to the Guyanese leader, he remains committed to engaging international partners in ways that safeguard Guyana’s sovereignty and advance the country’s national interests.
“We will strengthen cooperation where it brings tangible benefits to our people, while ensuring that our resources and opportunities are managed to secure prosperity for this and future generations,” he asserted.
One of Guyana’s strongest allies when it comes to advancing the country’s interests is the United States. This was demonstrated when two U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II aircraft took part in a closely coordinated flyover of Georgetown alongside the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) during President Ali’s inauguration celebration.
The US Embassy in Georgetown said the flyover, which was done with the consent of the Guyana Government, “…symbolises the United States’ full solidarity with the people of Guyana as we advance our shared goals of peace, prosperity and regional security.”
In a move to crackdown on drug cartels in the Latin American and Caribbean region, Washington recently deployed three warships off the coast of Venezuela. US officials say that designated narco-terrorist organisations like Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles are using the region’s air and sea corridors to funnel drugs into the US, thus posing a direct threat to American lives and security.
Just last month, the Guyana Government threw full support behind the US operations, stating: “Such criminal networks have the capacity to overwhelm state institutions, undermine democracy, pervert the rule of law and threaten human dignity and development. The Government of Guyana underscores the necessity for strengthened cooperation and concerted efforts at the national, regional, hemispheric and global levels to effectively combat this menace.”
The Guyana Government had also reaffirms its commitment to, and support for, a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organised crime by working with bilateral partners to dismantle criminal networks to safeguard the region’s shared security.
These sentiments were reiterated by President Ali, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, during a subsequent engagement with reporters on August 22.
“As President, part of my duty is to ensure our sovereignty is maintained and that we continue to live in peace here… We’ve always said we support this region being a zone of peace and we understand the importance of our sovereignty and we’ll do everything to protect our sovereignty,” Ali had told reporters last month.
In March 2025, President Dr Ali and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had visited Georgetown, signed an enhanced Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deepen cooperation in areas such as transnational organised crime, narcotrafficking, money laundering, and other forms of smuggling.
Key frameworks for information sharing and military-to-military collaboration were also established.
During his inauguration speech on Sunday, the Head of State pledged to take decisive action to clamp down on transnational crimes and other threats that undermine Guyana’s security and development.
“Importantly, we’ll align ourselves with our allies and international partners to cripple transnational crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and every act of criminality that threatens or undermines peace, freedom and democracy,” he stated.
President Ali went on to assure that there will be tangible action from his government to ensure Guyana is protected from criminal networks that operate across the region.
“My fellow Guyanese, in the next five years, we will convert ambition into action and action into transformation. We will not speak in half-measures, and we will not hesitate to deliver,” the Head of State declared.