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Last week Friday, we took you to the Sarstoon River three days after the most recent round of Washington talks. Both sides were locked in meetings for more than 5 hours.  Coming out of it was the very vague undertaking that both sides had agreed to, quote, “best practices for the de-escalation of tensions in the Sarstoon River.â€￾

And we witnessed what may have been that de-escalation on Friday when our news team was not harassed by the Guatemalan Navy. That appears to lend credibility that there was modest success in Washington, since Guatemala was still blocking Belizeans, days after the Istanbul Talks.

Today, the Prime Minister was asked to clarify what is the latest understanding on Belizean’s free use of the River.:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"We cannot be satisfied until we get that so call cooperation, Sarstoon cooperation mechanism in writing. And I believe that the efforts to do just that are fully underway, ambassadors Rosado from our side and Roldan from the Guatemalan side are to take the first stab at reducing what has been discussed to writing with a view to producing this protocol. In the meantime, it was my expectation after the OAS meeting, last OAS meeting."

"My expectation as a consequence of that meeting was that our people would be able to traffic the Sarstoon unimpeded. Now the Guatemalans have not formally said this and therefore I have to be careful not to attribute anything to them that is not an official positon. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating and as far as I know since that meeting people have gone; again not Mr. Vasquez but his reporter without let or hindrance so I have to consider that progress; predating the question of civilians going from a while now there has been no difficulty in terms of our soldiers."

But, a few days after the Istanbul Talks, which preceded last week's Washington negotiations, Wil Maheia, Channel 5 and KREM tested the Belize government's assertion that Belizeans could freely traffic the river. The Guatemalans blocked them, and a few weeks later, the press got a copy of a diplomatic note form the Guatemalans in which they deny that they agreed to any such access. So, what's the Prime Minister's take on Guatemala's absolute rejection of this informal understanding? He told us that he still has no doubt that they did agree informally, and for their own internal political reasons, they weren't ready to concede it publicly:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"It is clear that no doubt for reasons of their own internal politics the Guatemalans simply were not prepared to concede that point in public. I wasn't there so I can't tell you for sure that they did agree but I believe the Belizean officials."