Venezuela is using tactics of "intimidation and aggression" in its border dispute with neighboring Guyana, the president of the small South American country charged on Tuesday in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

"There has been a series of acts of aggression by presidents of Venezuela against my country," David Granger claimed as he listed incidents dating from 1968 all the way up to a May 2015 decree by his embattled Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, Reuters reported.

With said measure, Maduro had created a theoretical offshore "defense" area that would leave Guyana with no direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. "Mindful of its superior wealth and military strength and unmindful of its obligation as a member state of the United Nations ... has pursued a path of intimidation and aggression," Granger lamented.

The dispute between Venezuela and Guyana goes back more than a century and centers on the oil-rich Essequibo region, which an international tribunal awarded to the then-British colony in 1899 over Caracas' objections. This year, the strife turned increasingly personal between Granger and Maduro after the Venezuelan leader called his Guyanese counterpart a "hostage of Exxon Mobil."

Maduro referenced the American company because of a recent oil discovery in the disputed territory, which earlier this year led Caracas to withdraw its ambassador from Georgetown, Guyana's capital. Nevertheless, the neighbors managed to agree to restore full diplomatic ties last week, and their envoys are expected to soon return to their respective posts, according to El Universal.

In his own address to the U.N. General Assembly, meanwhile, Maduro praised the rapprochement on Sunday, noting that "the diplomacy of peace prevailed." The Venezuelan president suggested that he and Granger maintain a "constant dialog" as Ban and a commission of U.N. experts analyze the Essequibo's future, Telesur reported.

"I am going to begin to communicate with President Granger," he promised. "We want brotherly ties with Guyana. While there may be many differences (between us), our peoples are destined to be brothers," Maduro insisted, according to the semi-official Venezuelan TV network.