Mideast countries united in anger over Trump's Golan vow

DAMASCUS - Syria, its allies, and fellow states in the region Friday condemned US President Donald Trump's pledge to recognise Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights slamming the move as a violation of international law.

Trump said Thursday it was time for Washington to recognise Israel's sovereignty over the strategic territory, which it seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.

His abrupt tweet triggered delight in Israel, but outrage from other countries in the region as well as powerhouses such as Russia and Turkey.

Moscow warned the policy U-turn could spark new conflicts.

"Such appeals can considerably destabilise an already tense situation in the Middle East," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Hopefully it will remain (just) a call."

Any such move would break with UN Security Council resolutions and with more than half a century of US foreign policy, which treated the Golan as occupied territory whose future would be negotiated in talks with Syria on a comprehensive peace.

'Integral part of Syria'

The territory's return has always been a key Syrian national demand, championed by government and rebels alike throughout the bloody civil war that has ripped the country apart since 2011.

Tens of thousands of Syrians fled or were expelled when Israel seized the territory. Some Syrians remained, however, and today around 23,000 Druze -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam who also live in Lebanon -- live in the Israeli-controlled sector, alongside 25,000 Israeli settlers.

The vast majority of these Druze see themselves as Syrians, refusing to take Israeli nationality and remaining in a stateless limbo.

"We are an integral part of Syria," said Nizar Ayub, head of Al-Marsad, an Arab human rights organisation on the Golan.

He is alarmed by Trump's remarks, which he sees as showing Trump's aim of dividing Syria into zones of influence: American, Russian-Iranian, Turkish and now Israeli.

In an angry retort to Trump, the Syrian government said his comments disregarded international law.

"The American position towards Syria's occupied Golan Heights clearly reflects the United States' contempt for international legitimacy and its flagrant violation of international law," a foreign ministry source told the official SANA news agency.

Trump's comments showed the extent of his administration's "blind bias" towards Israel.

"The Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian," the source said.

The foreign ministry sent a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, urging him to reiterate the UN's rejection of Israeli claims over the Golan, SANA said.

'National commitment'

Turkey, which hosted the last indirect peace talks between Israel and the Syrian government in 2008 but has backed Syrian rebels, said the change risked plunging the region into a "new crisis".

"We will never allow the occupation of Golan Heights to be made legitimate," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted he was "shocked by @realDonaldTrump continuing to try to give what is not his to racist Israel."

And France added its voice to the chorus of outrage, saying the Golan had been "occupied by Israel since 1967" and it did not recognise Israel's annexation.

In his tweet, Trump said the Golan was "of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!"

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognise Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights," he said.

The Arab League said Trump's comments were "completely outside international law".

The Gulf Cooperation Council said Trump's statement would not change the internationally recognised fact that the "Golan heights are Syrian lands forcefully occupied by Israel".

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said lasting peace in the region requires Israel to withdraw from all Arab territories it occupies, including the Golan.

Egypt urged "respect (for) legitimate international resolutions and the United Nations Charter on the unacceptability of land appropriation by force".

Following decades of calm along the Golan armistice line after the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973, tensions flared with the eruption of civil war in Syria in 2011.

Israel provided medical assistance to wounded rebel fighters and repeatedly struck government positions in response to stray fire across the frontier.

It has also targeted suspected positions of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which have intervened militarily to back President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli thank you

Since the Syrian government decisively defeated rebel fighters near the armistice line last year with Iranian and Hezbollah support, Israel has repeatedly vowed to prevent its arch enemies from establishing a long-term military presence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking re-election next month, swiftly thanked Trump for his announcement.

"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognises Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," the right-wing prime minister wrote on Twitter.

Leon Panetta, a veteran Democrat who served as CIA director and defence secretary among other roles, blasted Trump for "tweeting out another policy that obviously has not been worked out with our international partners".

Thursday's announcement from Trump was hinted at a week ago when the US State Department changed its description of the area from "occupied" to "Israeli-controlled".

It is yet to be made operative by an act of Congress or an executive order.

It coincided with a high-profile visit to Jerusalem by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- another boost for Netanyahu as he fights what is shaping up to be a close-run reelection battle.

The Golan move is Trump's latest diplomatic bombshell as he seeks to redraw the fraught Middle East in Israel's favour.

In 2017, Trump went against decades of practice in recognising the city of Jerusalem - which like the Golan is illegally occupied - as Israel's capital, rather than the previously accepted Tel Aviv.

The international consensus is that the status of the city should be negotiated in a future peace deal between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Palestinians see the mainly Arab eastern part of the city - which Israel has also targeted with an illegal Jewish settlement program - as their capital.