Syria requests urgent UN Security Council meeting on Golan

UNITED NATIONS: Syria asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to hold an urgent meeting on the US decision to recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday in which the United States recognised Israel’s annexation of the strategic plateau, despite UN resolutions that call for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan.

In a letter seen by AFP, 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 and diplomats said there would be a discussion at the council about the request.

On Friday, Syria wrote a separate letter urging the council to uphold resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw from the Golan.

The council is scheduled to discuss the latest crisis on Wednesday during a meeting on renewing the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force deployed between Israel and Syria in the Golan, known as UNDOF.

‘Crucial turning point’

The head of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, a key Syrian ally, called for resistance against the US decision.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the only option left to Syrians to take back their land — and for Palestinians to achieve their “legitimate rights” — was “resistance, resistance, and resistance.”

He described Trump’s move as “a crucial turning point in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Trump’s decision “deals a knockout punch to what is called the peace process in the region, which is built on (the concept of) land in exchange for peace”, he said in a televised address.

He called on the Arab League, which has suspended Syria’s membership over the bloody repression of protests leading to the war, to take action at a summit at the end of the month in Tunis.