Egypt Daily News – The German Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Israeli settlements in occupied Syria is against the law, calling those in the region to take Syria’s territorial integrity into account.
It urged Israel to “abandon” a plan to double the number of people living in the occupied Golan Heights and the annexed area on the southwestern edge of Syria.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “It is absolutely clear under international law that this area controlled by Israel belongs to Syria and that Israel is therefore an occupying power.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Israel against the consequences of reckless steps regarding Syria and called on it to respect the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, stressing the inadmissibility of annexing the Syrian Golan Heights.
He added: “I would like to warn some of the “protective heads” in West Jerusalem against the euphoria of what is available, and to remind them, among other things, that the annexation of the Golan Heights that many are talking about now is completely unacceptable,” noting that “Israel must return to Full implementation of the 1974 (disengagement) agreement with Syria.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last Monday that the Golan Heights will forever remain “an integral part of Israel,” at a time when the Israeli army crossed the border into Syria and seized the buffer zone in the Golan Heights, which is part of the Syrian Quneitra Governorate.
Netanyahu said earlier that the disengagement agreement with Syria in the Golan Heights, reached shortly after the 1973 war, had ended with the Syrian army abandoning its positions.
Netanyahu’s office explained that “the deployment of Israeli forces in the buffer zone is temporary, until forces committed to the 1974 agreement are formed and security on our borders is guaranteed.”
