Syria requests urgent UN Security Council meeting on Golan Heights
new york — Syria asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to hold an urgent meeting on the US decision to recognise the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Monday in which the United States recognised Israel’s annexation of the plateau, despite UN resolutions that call for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan.
In a letter, the Syrian mission to the United Nations asked the council presidency, held by France, to schedule an urgent meeting to “discuss the situation in the occupied Syrian Golan and the recent flagrant violation of the relevant Security Council’s resolution by a permanent member-state”.
The French presidency did not immediately schedule the meeting. Five European countries with seats on the council earlier rejected Trump’s decision and voiced concern that the US move would have broad consequences in the Middle East.
Two of Washington’s closest allies — Britain and France — joined Belgium, Germany and Poland to declare that the European position had not changed and that the Golan remained Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, in line with international law enshrined in UN resolutions.
Three UN Security Council resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981, in a move that was never recognised internationally.
5 European countries have rejected Trump’s decision