ISLAMABAD : Pakistan yesterday joined the international community in voicing its strong opposition and condemnation of the United States Administration’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Syrian Golan Heights.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump added a new notch to his belt of shock foreign policy moves, signing a proclamation officially recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967 and has occupied ever since.
Trump initially announced the policy about-face last week via Twitter, writing: “After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!” The decision is major in a few ways. It’s yet another rejection by the Trump administration of decades of US policy; it recognizes Israeli sovereignty over a territory internationally recognized as belonging to an Arab state; and it’s seen as a boost to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s elections.
It also makes things awkward for Washington’s Arab allies, whose populations oppose Israeli seizures of Arab lands. The signing, which took place in the White House with Netanyahu present, makes the US the only country in the world besides Israel to recognize the annexed territory, which comprises the western two-thirds of the Golan. A UN spokesperson quoted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as being “clear that the status of Golan has not changed” — according to UN Security Council Resolution 497 of 1981, Israel’s administration of the territory is “null and void.”