Venezuela plans military exercises in Caribbean as a British warship heads to Guyana

A man sells phone cables in front of a mural of the Venezuelan map with the Essequibo territory included in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 11. (Matias Delacroix/AP)

BOGOTA, Colombia — President Nicolás Maduro ordered Venezuela's armed forces to conduct defensive exercises in the Eastern Caribbean after the United Kingdom sent a warship toward Guyana's territorial waters as the South American neighbors dispute a large border region.

In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Maduro said that 6,000 Venezuelan troops, including air and naval forces, will conduct joint operations off the nation's eastern coast — near the border with Guyana.