It is, to say the least, unfortunate that Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro , has allowed domestic pressures to cause him to take the extreme measure of issuing a decree on May 27, creating the "Atlantic coast of Venezuela " that includes sovereignty over Guyana's territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean off the Essequibo region and stretches eastward across the rest of the country into part of Suriname's maritime space. Effectively the decree claims all the territorial waters within a 200 miles range and blocks Guyana's access to the Atlantic Ocean.