U.S. Responds to Netanyahu: Golan Heights Are Not Part of Israel
Syrian President Assad demanded that one principle upon which the international talks will be based is that the Golan Heights be considered occupied territory that must be returned to Syria.
The Golan Heights is perhaps the second most sensitive piece of real estate in the Middle East behind only the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
This is because it occupies a strategic position on the border between Israel and Syria, with the Lebanese border just to the northwest.
Many battles have been fought between Syria and Israel for control of these hills; Israel has control of them but they are actually inside Syria and this occupation by Israel is illegal.
The fact that the US has reminded Israel of this and will not support annexation is another indicator of the decreased influence of Israel inside the US and the deteriorated state of relations between the Obama administration and Netanyahu.
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Apr 18, 2016, Barak Ravid, Haaretz
U.S. Responds to Netanyahu: Golan Heights Are Not Part of Israel State Department spokesperson says ‘status of Golan Heights should be determined through negotiations, but current situation in Syria does not allow this. ‘
U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby stressed Monday night that the Obama administration does not consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed they “will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty.”
“The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged,” Kirby told reporters during a daily briefing at the State Department in Washington. “This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations. The current situation in Syria does not allow this,” Kirby continued.
The U.S. is the second country after Germany to respond to Netanyahu’s declaration that the Golan, captured from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed, “will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty.”
“It’s a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state’s territory just like that,” Martin Schaefer, spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, said Monday.
Israel annexed the Golan in 198, in a move unanimously rejected the same year by the United Nations Security Council.
Netanyahu’s declaration came as UN-sponsored international efforts are being made to obtain a political accord to end the civil war in Syria.
Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office say that Syrian President Assad demanded that one principle upon which the international talks will be based is that the Golan Heights be considered occupied territory that must be returned to Syria.
On Thursday, Netanyahu will fly to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu’s senior aides say the prime minister plans to bring up this issue at their meeting and to stress the same message to Putin.
