Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine has dis­missed pub­lic con­cern over the use of To­ba­go’s air­ports by US mil­i­tary air­craft as fear mon­ger­ing, in­sist­ing the is­land re­mains neu­tral ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion.

Speak­ing at a TPP po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Mt St George/Good­wood late Sat­ur­day night, Au­gus­tine said he on­ly be­came aware US mil­i­tary air­craft had been au­tho­rised to use To­ba­go’s air­port through a re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, which in­formed his of­fice be­fore it was made pub­lic.

He told sup­port­ers the dis­clo­sure had trig­gered un­nec­es­sary alarm and sought to re­as­sure To­bag­o­ni­ans To­ba­go was not be­ing drawn in­to any in­ter­na­tion­al con­flict.